


a better place cannot be found

by nicheinhischest



Series: this is no bridget jones [2]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 16:19:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicheinhischest/pseuds/nicheinhischest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Niall doesn’t put much thought into wrinkled newspaper horoscopes or fortune cookies pulled from the bottom of a bag of Chinese ordered at midnight, but.</p><p>But Zayn’s still got the faint marker print of Niall’s number on his forearm, and Louis’ giving Liam this gleeful look like he’s thinking <i>wrecking you a little is going to be so much fun</i>, and Harry’s wrapped around Niall like a drunken, affectionate sloth, and the four of them have managed to sneak up on Niall without very much warning at all. If he’s just taking it all in with a smile on his face and a beer in his hand going <i>yeah, alright, guess you’re finally here</i>, then he thinks it might be nice, fate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a better place cannot be found

**Author's Note:**

> There's not much plot to this unless you count 'Niall loves everyone a whole bunch and Zayn smiles at him a lot' because seriously, it was just an excuse to write increasingly fluffy stuff in this 'verse. And lbr, this is no bridget jones was pretty much an ot5 with a bit of Ziall thrown in at the end - suppose this is the opposite, but there's still a ton of ot5, because idk. I like when they hug.
> 
> The first quarter of this speeds through the first school year in a and-that's-what-you-missed-on-Glee kind of way, so it may not make much sense/feel rushed if you haven't read tinbj, which was like the opposite of rushed, so it's probably better to do that if you haven't already (also good for references/characters/etc). 
> 
> Right! So. **Contains:** capslock messages (some sent drunk), shot guns (of the weed variety), ot5 cuddles (two while in a bed!), and surprisingly little pasta references this time around (though someone does wear a macaroni necklace).

### now  
(new year's day, 2014)

Niall is pulling little pop streamers out of his hair with one hand and holding his phone up to his ear with the other when Zayn finds him, a few seconds into the new year. He says, _Yeah, ma, Zayn’s here gotta go, happy new year, love you_ just as Zayn steps in close for a hug, hands on Niall’s waist, nose buried in Niall’s hair.

“How are you not covered in anything?” Niall asks. Zayn doesn't have streamers on him at all, or the little foil pieces of confetti his little sisters are throwing around, or wet patches of champagne from the bottle Louis shook into the air earlier because someone was actually careless enough to let him hold a bottle of champagne. “What, you got, like, a sixth sense for messes? Or is this one of those 'if I told you, I’d have to kill you' things?”

Zayn laughs. He says, “You’re too young to die, really,” and Niall hooks his arms around Zayn’s shoulders and smiles. "Oh, and happy new year.” 

His voice is muted over the cacophony of family and friends saying the same, and they’re standing off to the side of the room - not _quite_ hidden, but no one’s managed to find them again yet, so it feels like a private sort of moment.

Niall stuffs his phone into his back pocket. “Happy new ye - ”

Someone barrels into his back, grips him tight around his waist. He stumbles into Zayn, cranes his neck to see who it is behind him, and laughs. “Liam, fuck, who gave you something to drink? Was it Louis?”

“I am not drunk,” Liam says, and then smacks a kiss to Niall’s temple and whispers, “ _I’m a little drunk_." He throws his hands up. "Happy new year!”

He latches onto Zayn’s side next, and that’s when Harry finds them too. He clamps onto Niall, and _then_ , because the five of them send out pheromones or sonar or a Bat-Signal in the shape of one of Liam’s arrows whenever they’re within range of each other, they hear Louis say, “Wow, no one told me there was going to be a group hug.”

“It wasn’t,” Harry says, and he’s somehow wedged himself between Zayn and Niall without Niall realizing. Niall doesn’t mind. “We made it one.”

“Well, I’m wounded. And I brought more champagne.” Louis holds up an unopened bottle. “Apparently being twenty-two automatically means I can be trusted with alcohol but I say fuck presumptions; let's just drink it in Zayn’s room and play strip poker.”

There’s a general shout of agreement from the other four, and then Liam’s leading the way upstairs with Harry right behind and Louis holding the bottle up above his head like a trophy in the middle. Niall and Zayn bring up the back, and Zayn throws his mother a placating look when she stops him for a moment at the bottom of the stairs that promises no broken glass or bones, he _swears_. Niall loosens the collar of his button-down when they step onto the landing upstairs, and Zayn knocks him gently in the shoulder.

“You know, I was thinking about it, and the first time we kissed was almost a year ago. After Harry's birthday party?”

Niall sticks his hands in his pockets as they head into Zayn's room. “Yeah, sounds about right,” he says, and watches Liam bow deeply in the middle of it and hold a hand out to Harry as Louis pops open the champagne bottle. Zayn leans with his back against the door to shut it.

“Feels like forever ago, doesn’t it?”

“Nah,” Niall smiles at him, shakes his head just a bit. He takes a step towards Zayn. “ _Last_ time we kissed feels like forever ago.”

Zayn laughs. “What, tonight, right before the countdown?”

”Zayn, you got a deck of cards, man?” Louis says, rifling through drawers one-handed while his other tips champagne into his mouth, and Zayn looks over Niall’s shoulder to answer.

”Yeah, should be in a shoe box next to the stack of board games on the top shelf in the closet.” He waits until he’s sure Louis’ found them, laughs when Louis has to enlist Harry’s gargantuan arms for help because the shelf is too high up, and then looks back at Niall. He’s all soft around the eyes and mouth, like he can’t believe he’s lucky enough to have four of the people he loves best in one room. 

Niall crowds in closer, and it _has_ been nearly a year since Harry’s party, Zayn's right. It wasn’t anything other than a form of friendly comfort at the time, a means of distraction. The other stuff - the _I can get used to this_ stuff, the _falling in love_ stuff - didn’t come ‘til months and months later. Really, it took them a whole school year to sort things out properly.

Took them awhile to get _here_ , too, with Niall kissing Zayn up against the door of his bedroom on New Year’s Day while their best friends set up a game behind them, though this route has been undoubtedly less complicated than the one before it. 

”Hey, we have a game to play,” Harry says. When Niall looks over at them, they’ve formed a semi-circle on Zayn’s carpeted floor, with two people-shaped spots left for Zayn and Niall to fill. Harry hands the bottle off to Niall once he's seated, and Niall grips it by the neck and takes a long pull. He thumps his chest after, gives the bottle to Zayn who takes a quick swig and carefully holds it out for Louis.

Zayn wipes his mouth, smiles expectantly down at the cards already dealt, “Texas hold 'em? Same rules as usual?”

“Yep, whoever's got the worst hand each round takes off a piece of clothing. Best hand gets to pick another item,” Louis says, licking the remnants of champagne off his lips. “And for the tenth time, _Zayn_ , jewelry doesn’t count.” 

Zayn flips him off, and Harry rubs his hands together. “What’s the end goal here?”

“I thought drinking and playing cards,” Niall says, and scoots away from Zayn, mostly because Zayn doesn’t play fair when clothing’s involved. 

“No, like,” Harry’s cradling the champagne bottle to his chest now, “it's a holiday. We should do something special for whoever takes off the most items.”

Liam straightens out his cards and frowns. “Like, whoever's lost the most after however many hands?”

“I don’t think you understand what a loser is in this game,” Harry tells him. “There are no losers in strip poker, only those slightly more naked than everyone else.”

Liam laughs, fixes the stack of cards in his hands. “Fine, then. Most, um - most naked after fifteen rounds has to make a snow angel out in the backyard in their undies once everyone else is asleep.”

“Well, that’s downright _cruel_ , Liam Payne.” Louis pats his head. “Not bad.”

Liam grins, and starts to deal the community cards in front of him. Niall’s looking at the two in his hand when Zayn leans to his side, mouth right up to his ear. "We can play this again later too, when the boys're gone. Minus the cards. And the rules."

"You're not gonna distract me," Niall says. Zayn just smiles, tilts his head so he's in Niall face. He flicks out his tongue, and then muffles Niall's responding laugh with a kiss, keeps going until Niall kisses him back and sorta-maybe forgets he’s holding cards. His hand droops into his lap, and Zayn pulls away to look down at his cards, and then the one's Liam dealt.

“Hm. Shit hand. _And_ you suck at bluffing. Too bad.”

Niall snatches his cards up close to his chest again, laughing. “Fucking _cheat_."

Zayn smirks, settles back into his own seat again, and Harry says, “Come on, Niall." He's holding his cards right up against his nose, and squints suspiciously at the rest of them. “All’s fair in love and strip poker.”

Niall shakes his head, still grinning. Zayn reaches out a hand to drag the knuckle of his index finger lightly along Niall's jaw, and it might’ve taken them awhile, sure, but they _did_ get it right eventually.

Liam deals the river card, and Zayn asks Niall, "Had a pretty good year, didn't we, babe?"

Niall grins, lifts his shoulders with a lazy shrug.

“Don’t really have too many complaints."

### then

Niall’s roommate - Harry Styles, eighteen, hobbies include inadvertently mimicking cat behavior and having curly hair - is naked the first time Niall walks into their dormitory room in the Fall of 2012. Or. Mostly naked. 

Not that the little briefs are really doing much to cover anything. 

Niall gets through the door, leaves it open since his mother is bound to appear with a closet organizer at some point, and sets down the box of clothes he’s been carrying. He looks at Harry lying spread-eagle on a bare mattress, head tipped over the side with his eyes shut, says, “Hey - Harry?”

Harry opens his eyes and when he sees Niall, he grins. “Niall! You’re finally here.”

He reaches out, and Niall’s not sure if he wants a hug or to be helped down, but Harry decides for him when he scrambles off the bed - and almost falls off completely with flailing limbs before he manages to hit the floor with his feet instead of his face. Harry looks down, like he’s surprised he’s not curled up in pain next to an unopened box labeled DVDS AND BOOKS and shakes out his hair. He peeks up at Niall from under his fringe and laughs.

“Nice landing,” Niall tells him with a grin. “Rotation was a bit off, though. Eight-point-two.”

"Good thing I still have the floor routine," Harry says, and hugs Niall. "Nice to meet you in person. And, sorry I'm not wearing clothes but it's really hot in here and I can't get the air going."

“Can probably get someone to fix that later,” Niall muses, and looks around the empty room. “Where’s your family?”

“Oh, they’re all gone, I’ve been here since this morning. Well - my best friend’s still here, but he saw a snack machine on the first floor, so.” Harry looks down, pats the bed. “Did you want this one, by the way? I can switch. Just gave up on unpacking for now and flopped down on the closest one.”

“Nah, you’re good,” Niall says, and pulls himself up onto the other bed. “So - are you naked a lot then?”

“Usually in various states of undress, yeah.” Harry climbs back onto the mattress. “You don’t have a problem with that, do you? I mean, this is a shared space and I want to respect your boundaries, so if you’d like me to wear clothes, I can.”

Niall shrugs, and leans against the wall. “Naked’s pretty nice sometimes. Mom’s coming up though, so maybe...?”

“Right,” Harry flops down, reaches for a bundle of clothes at the bottom of the mattress. Niall watches him determinedly yank on what are probably the tightest pair of skinny jeans Niall has ever seen a human being wear. 

“How do you -”

“It’s an art form,” Harry tells him before Niall even finishes, butt lifting off the mattress so he can button the jeans, and then sits up to pull on a white v-neck and,

“You have four nipples?”

“You can’t milk them, believe me,” Harry says, and Niall hears a bewildered laughs from the door. His mother’s standing there with her organizers, and behind _her_ is a boy with swoopy hair carrying one of the cardboard boxes Niall left in the car, a mini canister of Pringles set precariously atop it.

“I see we’ve already played the getting to know you game,” the boy says, and adjusts the box so he can slide an arm around Niall’s mother’s shoulders. “Maura and I found each other downstairs. She’s very proud of her son, following in his big brother’s footsteps and all. Another university-bound kid - whole family’s proud, aren’t they, Maura?”

The boy kisses her cheek - Niall’s still not even sure who he _is_ but his mom looks pleased enough about it, so whatever - and steps forward to set the box down by Niall’s bed. He sticks a hand out. “Louis. I-S, like the sun king, not I-E -”

“Like that cat from _The Princess Diaries_ ,” Harry says helpfully as he slides off the bed to help Maura unpack the box Niall’s already brought up.

Niall shakes his hand, already smiling. “Take it you’re the best friend?”

Louis smiles. “My reputation precedes me.” He makes a face then, pulls his shirt from his chest. “Jesus, why’s it so _hot_.”

Niall hops off the bed, and he can feel sweat prickling under his arms and at the nape of his neck, now that Louis’ mentioned it. “Would kill for a little cool air,” he says, and as if on cue, the air conditioning unit built into the wall churns to life and kicks in. Harry stops mid-conversation with Maura, looks over at Niall with something akin to awe.

“Are you like... magic?”

Niall laughs, crouches down to open the box at his feet. “Probably.”

“Now I won’t die of heat exposure,” Harry says, and even without looking up, Niall can tell he’s smiling. “You basically saved my life, Niall. This is a sign that we’re destined to be friends.”

Niall’s eyes crinkle in the corners. “Sounds good to me.”

"So, Niall," Louis digging through Harry's boxes on the floor, "your mother tells me you did theatre tech in high school."

"Yeah, lights. Are you a theatre major?"

Louis snorts. "No, I don't even go here. Wanna be a teacher."

"He tells everyone it's for high school, but really it's early education," Harry says, and then nods to Louis. "He was in a production, though. His last year."

"What for?"

" _Grease_ ," Louis pops an imaginary collar. "Played Danny. It was the highlight of my institution's entire theatre history. You ever act?"

“Nah, I liked the behind the scenes stuff. But, y'know," Niall crawls over to the edge of his mattress to grin down at Louis. "I sing occasionally."

"So does Harry," Louis says. "Start an a capella group. Think of all the musical puns you could use."

"Yeah," Niall knocks his snapback up to scratch under his hair. "We can rework Destiny's Child songs so they sound operatic. Call ourselves I Don't Think They Can Handel This.” 

Louis throws his head back and laughs, and just like that, Niall knows he’s in.

\---

The three of them go to a tattoo parlor the first weekend of October. Niall leaves without one, but Louis’ got a black wrapping over a newly inked stick figure on his forearm, and Harry’s got two - one of them's on the inside of his bicep, for his older sister, he says. Harry leans towards Niall then, arm around his shoulders, to speak into his ear - or really, speak with his mouth up against Niall’s lower cheek, and Niall’s not sure Harry even knows what an ear _is_.

“Hey, did you see what else I got, huh?”

“Yeah,” Niall grins, and Louis tells him, “You know you’re part of a club now. The Harry Styles Got A Tattoo For Me Club. Very official, we have membership dues and everything.”

"Yeah?" Niall nods at Louis. "What d'you have?"

Louis smiles, and stops them for a moment to lift Harry’s arm up. He points to a place on the inside of Harry’s bicep, just past the newest, wrapped up tattoo, before letting Harry’s arm drop back down.

"Hi," Niall says. "Simple - man, that is a _busy_ arm, Harry. Do you even like the Packers?”

Harry shakes his head, laughs. “My club doesn’t like excluding people it cares about.”

“Your club also loses a lot of bets,” Louis says, falling into step next to Harry again. He hops up on his toes as they turn the block, aims a haphazard kiss to Harry’s temple and even after a few months, Niall’s still not sure what they are when they’re together, Harry and Louis. But he figures people are people, not maps or cardboard cutouts, and there’s no specific set of instruction manuals for relationships - rod A into slot B, repeat ad nauseum - and it’s not like it’s his business, so.

Niall squeezes Harry’s waist. “Now I wanna get you something, though. What do I give a person whose permanently marked their body for me?”

“Keep being my friend,” Harry says, just like that, “and we’ll call it even.”

“Aw, Harry,” Niall coos at him, and Harry smiles, unfazed. He ducks his head to shake out his hair, and Niall can see the shadowed outline of a clover nestled new on Harry’s wrist when he reaches across to pat Niall’s cheek after.

“You’re my favorite roommate, you know,” he tells Niall.

“He says that, but he’s only ever _had_ you as a roommate,” Louis teases, and reaches across Harry’s back to scratch at Niall’s hair.

“Still true,” Harry insists, and as they stumble down the block, Niall grins, and silently thanks whoever had the foresight to throw them together.

\---

Niall's brother decides to throw a party at the beginning of October, and that's how Niall meets Zayn. He holds Niall's legs for a keg stand, and within an hour, he and Zayn are partnered up in the beer pong tournament. They _decimate_ the other teams, because Niall’s got laser accuracy when he’s drinks, and Zayn's surprisingly skilled at game-winning shots. The party isn’t even close to winding down when they finally collect their trophy and slump down onto the sofa that’s been pushed into a corner.

Niall’s still humming snatches of _weeee are the champions_ as Zayn laughs, and Niall doesn’t know much about him yet beyond the basic details - took a year off before coming to school, loves to draw and paint, presses his tongue up against his teeth when he smiles - but Niall does know his gut when it comes to first impressions, and his gut is never wrong.

“We’re gonna be friends,” he says, and Zayn stares at him with glassy, drunk eyes and a half-smile.

“Yeah? Cool.” He lets his head fall back to the top of the sofa, his grip on their trophy tightening. “Gimme your number then, Nail - whoops. N...ail. File. Nail file.” He laughs again. “Think m'drunk.”

“Yeah, might be,” Niall grins, and pulls out the Sharpie he knows he’s got in his back pocket and waves it in Zayn’s direction. “Any chance you got a sketchpad on you?”

The ends of Zayn’s mouth curve up. “Pockets aren’t big enough. Got an arm, though.”

He holds out a forearm - his other is covered with tattoos - and Niall writes his number in giant print. After a moment, he adds _NAIL FILE :D_ , and then with a quick glance at the grip Zayn has on their winnings, _U OWE ME TROPHY!!!!!_. Zayn reads it when Niall’s done, goes cross-eyed as he does so before laughing again.

Harry appears then, throws himself into Niall’s lap with about as much finesse as a Saint Bernard puppy. “You met Zayn!”

Zayn lifts a hand, still smiling. “Hi, Harry.”

“You know each other?” Niall’s got his arms around Harry’s waist, and Harry nods. 

“Oh, we go way back,” he says, and nudges Niall. “He came with that guy from my class I told you about - the one who offered to lend me _Toy Story_?"

"Ah," Niall tilts his head, smiling. "It was Liam, yeah? You said shaved head, uhh. Eyebrows?"

Harry taps the end of his nose with an index finger, and then looks around. “Hey, where is he?”

“With the hot bartender girl,” Zayn says.

“Ooh, Danielle,” Niall’s waggling his eyebrows, but he stops when Zayn sinks further into the sofa. He’s leaning to the side, too, leaning against _them_ , and Harry reaches out to scratch at the hair behind his ear. “Hey, is that bad?”

“No,” Zayn says, soft, “It’s just -”

He stops, looks at them for a long time, like he’s trying to gauge something. Niall keeps staring right back, and Harry tilts his head, tugs gently at the tiny hoop looped through Zayn's earlobe. They learn about Liam then, after a bit of slurred rambling from Zayn that makes Niall think he doesn’t talk about it sober, doesn’t talk about it _ever_.

The gist of it is that Liam is Zayn’s best friend, and Liam is also a person Zayn happens to be in love with, and sometimes - sometimes - that second part kind of sucks.

Once Harry and Niall are back in their own room that night, alone, Harry murmurs from his bed, “So - Zayn.”

Niall cracks open an eye. “Yeah?”

“I want to count his eyelashes,” Harry says, and Harry might be drunk. “I like him. He like... fits, you know?”

"Think so, yeah."

“Let’s help him with Liam.” Harry turns onto his stomach, pillows his head onto his arms. “Liam’s great, and Zayn - Zayn seems really cool. It’d be nice.”

Niall tugs on the ends of his hair - he’s going to have to dye the roots again soon - and he hasn’t even met Liam, but he can tell Zayn’s a good sort of people. If Liam’s his best friend, then Liam can’t be all that bad, either. He shrugs, smiles into the dark. “Alright. I’m in.”

So Niall and Harry make a plan, because Niall likes when things work out, and Harry’s always wanted to play a pigeon-toed, uncoordinated version of Cupid. Louis’ in too when Harry tells him over Skype the Monday after the party, except, “we have to give it a codename like a proper plan. Off a romcom or something.”

“Like _You’ve Got Mail_?” Harry asks, and Louis shakes his head.

“Was thinking more twenty-first century.”

“You’ve Got Snapchat?” Niall suggests dryly, and Louis’ laugh rings clear through the laptop speakers. 

In the end, they don’t come up with a name - but they have a numbered list in Harry’s phone that goes

 _1) Liam falls in love_

_2) Zayn gets to date his best friend_  


and that Thursday, they meet up with Zayn again and tell him. He’s got this deer-in-headlights look at first, like he doesn’t know what to make of it, but he eventually says okay. And when Niall and Louis finally _do_ meet Liam in a packed bar that’s conveniently forgotten they’re all underage -

Liam, whose got the laugh lines of a ninety-year-old, the most genuine smile Niall’s ever seen, and the ability to annoy Louis within minutes by virtue of his unassuming nature alone -

Niall knows, then and there, that even if Liam and Zayn _don’t_ end up dating, they’re going to stay. He _wants_ them to stay, because Niall found Harry and Harry brought him Louis and then stumbled into Liam who led them to Zayn and they just _fit_ , like Harry said before. 

Harry comes up behind Niall halfway through the night, stoops his shoulders and whisper-slurs into Niall's neck, "s’like fate, huh?" When Niall laughs, Harry says he’s serious, he’s sure of it, "it's kismet, meant to happen - _serendipity_ \- ! Ha, I know I watch too many movies, shut up."

Harry's one shot of vodka past sober, and Niall doesn’t put much thought into wrinkled newspaper horoscopes or fortune cookies pulled from the bottom of a bag of Chinese ordered at midnight, but.

But Zayn’s still got the faint marker print of Niall’s number on his forearm, and Louis’ giving Liam this gleeful look like he’s thinking _wrecking you a little is going to be so much fun_ , and Harry’s wrapped around Niall like a drunken, affectionate sloth, and the four of them have managed to sneak up on Niall without very much warning at all. If he’s just taking it all in with a smile on his face and a beer in his hand going _yeah, alright, guess you’re finally here_ , then he thinks it might be nice, fate.

Niall figures sometimes you meet people and you can just tell they’re going to be in your life for a really long time - and maybe you don’t know the hows or whys of it all, but you do know they’ll be there, and that feels like enough.

\---

Thing is, Niall’s interested in Zayn before he’s ever _interested_ in Zayn. They spend more and more time together, those first few months, and Zayn’s not quite as aloof as he likes to think his leather jackets make him. Yeah, he goes through a pack of smokes quicker than he should and ties the laces of his Docs with ink- and graphite-stained fingers and he's got that Derek Zoolander pout down pat, but he's a _massive fucking dork_ too - Niall has seen his collection of his favorite mint condition action figures, alright, lined up neatly along a shelf on his wall still in their boxes - and Niall gets a certain sense of satisfaction from knowing that Zayn only really laughs from the gut, with eyes squeezed shut and nose scrunched up, when he’s with them.

Anyway, the first time he and Niall kiss - after Harry’s birthday party - it's nothing, really. Niall just wants Zayn to stop thinking, stop living inside of his own head so much when it comes to Liam, and it works. Mostly.

But then it somehow goes from being a distraction for Zayn to Niall wanting to do it again, and it takes another party and a pair of gloves for Niall to realize he might be in over his head.

It’s a few weeks after Harry’s birthday, and he’s playing with another new band, in another random basement. The four of them go so they can cheer him on, and the party’s decent enough - then again, any place that’s got beer is alright with Niall. They all go off in separate directions eventually, and by the time Niall’s got a joint rolled and tucked behind his ear a bit before Harry’s band is supposed to play, he’s got no one to smoke it with. He can’t find any of the boys, doesn’t want to share the really good shit with strangers. He’s chill, but he’s not that chill - if he’s got a good strain, he’s saving it for himself and people he cares about, it feels rude to do otherwise.

He heads to the yard out back to light up and immediately regrets not bringing gloves or a scarf or a thicker jacket than the one he’s got on the second he gets outside, because it’s barely March and it's freezing. And of _course_ he’s only got a matchbook on him, and not his actual lighter, so by the time he sees Zayn heading towards him, hands stuffed in his pockets and breath puffing into the air like he’s the one smoking, Niall’s fingers are numb and he’s gone through his entire litany of curse words twice.

Zayn’s laughing at him, teasing, eyes bright even in the dark. He also, mercifully, has his own lighter on him. Niall still can’t feel his fingers when Zayn offers up his gloves once he's actually got the joint lit, and he slips them over Niall’s hands as his cheeks hollow with a hit, carefully tugs them into place. When Zayn’s satisfied, he drops their hands with his fingers wrapped around Niall’s wrist, holds the joint out with a thumb and forefinger so he can exhale. Niall swallows, and something like anticipation hums over him, blooms from where Zayn’s thumb is pressed against the sliver of bare skin where the glove doesn’t quite meet Niall’s sleeve.

Zayn's smiling at him, and he holds the joint up to Niall’s mouth so he can take a hit. Niall does, looks down at their joined hands as he holds the smoke in. Zayn asks him about his bracelet when he exhales, and Niall gives a dazed answer. He's looking at their hands, and then up at Zayn, and he thinks _oh_.

Zayn asks, “Wanna shotgun?” and he thinks _oh, I want to kiss you._

But he can’t. He _can’t_ , because Niall getting - what? - butterflies in his fucking stomach over a pair of borrowed gloves isn’t going to do Zayn any favors when he still looks at Liam from time to time like there might be something there. Niall makes some vague excuse about heading inside to watch Harry perform, and Zayn _keeps on holding his hand_. Niall laughs and untangles their fingers, tells Zayn he wants to be a supportive friend for Harry - and that’s funny, because he’s supposed to be that for Zayn, too.

Zayn takes a step to follow him inside, but Niall tells him to finish the joint, it’s cool, “I’ll save a spot for you, okay?”

He’s already at the back steps, and Zayn’s standing off to the side, by himself, head cocked like he’s confused. He says, “Okay,” and Niall smiles, turns and heads inside.

He tucks Zayn’s gloves into his jacket pockets, finds Liam and Louis against the wall, near the makeshift stage where Harry’s band has set up, and Louis smiles when he sees Niall. “I told Zayn to find you, and you manage to come back without him?”

“Smoking,” Niall says, and Louis shakes his head, amused, and then makes a face at Harry, whose gone a bit pale in front of the mic stand. Harry laughs, quick and surprised, and looks less like he’s going to vomit. Liam leans up to Niall’s side, says, “Hey, you good?”

Niall crooks an arm around Liam’s shoulders and grins. “Yeah, man, perfect.”

Liam rests a chin on his shoulder, and when Niall angles his head back awkwardly to look at him, Liam crosses his eyes. Niall laughs and tells himself whatever happened outside is just moment of strangeness. That's all.

Then Zayn comes up behind them a few minutes later, reeking of weed, and rests his head between Niall and Liam, arms spread out to hang over each of their shoulders. “Harry’s not gonna throw up, is he?” he asks, and his fingers are grazing Niall’s chest every time Niall inhales. He’s hyper-aware of the fact that Zayn is plastered against his back, hyper-aware that he _wants_ Zayn like this. And it’s not because Zayn’s one of his best friends, or because Zayn’s attractive and _there_. It’s because he’s Zayn, and Niall wants to kiss him - Niall kind of wants to kiss him _a lot_ , and he also maybe doesn’t want to kiss anyone else, at least right now.

And It’s weird, to be involved in something without a clear way out. He’s not used to it - not used to feeling unsure, or like he needs to be hesitant. Niall doesn’t do hesitant. He doesn’t do second-guessing, and he doesn’t do complicated, and this has definitely got the potential to drift that way.

Space, he thinks. He just - he needs space, to sort his head out. Maybe give himself a day or two.

“You can keep my gloves,” Zayn tells him, over the music, mouth brushing against Niall’s ear. “Don’t want your hands freezing and falling off on the walk home.”

Niall’s breath leaves him with a laugh. He nods, and gives himself a week.

\---

Niall gives himself a week, and by the end of it, he’s sitting on the edge of his bed in the room he and Harry share with Zayn standing in front of him, with Zayn’s mouth on his.

Granted, it's probably not Niall's _wisest_ option at the time, but that’s how it starts.

\---

It usually happens when they're smoking, mostly because Niall loves smoking with Zayn.

Everyone else he knows get too silly, too ridiculous, sometimes, and it gets tedious, having to deal with giggling friends when all he wants to do is put on chill music and relax. Niall _loves_ the giggly bits too, sure. He laughs too fucking much not to. It’s just, Zayn knows how to properly enjoy a high, knows how to close his eyes and focus on the steady, rhythmic beat of his heart, how to go pliant and let the aftereffects creep over his skin like a shiver.

They get back to Niall's room one night, just the two of them, after dinner and a few hits off a friend's volcano vape. Zayn heads to Niall's bed as soon as the door closes behind them, flops face down onto it, and Niall sets up his iPod in its dock. He scrolls to a playlist Harry made him, rubs at his heavy-lidded eyes with a fist once the music starts up, and he's adjusting his hair under his snapback when Zayn rolls over onto his back and picks himself up on his elbows.

“Is Harry coming back tonight?” he asks.

They’ve been doing this for weeks now, whatever _this_ is. And Niall’s never been big on labels, or defining shit, so he’s not really in any rush to talk about it. He likes kissing Zayn; Zayn likes kissing him. It works.

“Think he’s over Nick’s. Won’t be back ‘til late, probably.”

"Oh." Zayn scoots towards the wall, jerks his head to the side. “C'mere." 

Niall hits play on his iPod, goes to Zayn and climbs onto the mattress that feels too small for just him sometimes. But then Zayn turns on his side, folds an arm over Niall's chest and rests his chin on the crook of his elbow. He's pressed all along Niall side, heavy and warm, and Niall is suddenly grateful for whoever decided narrow twins were a good idea.

Zayn says, “You should send your friend a bunch of roses. Fruit basket - a nice watch. As a thank you for letting us smoke with her.”

He’s joking, obviously, and Niall snorts, his chest shaking underneath the press of Zayn’s arm. His laughter trails off just as quick as it comes, and he watches Zayn watch him, taps light fingertips onto the back of Zayn's hand like a drum beat to the song that’s thumping low over the speakers. They stay like that, still and calm and with this ever-present slip-slide of pleasure prickling over their skin wherever they touch until one song bleeds into the next and Niall's eyelids start to droop. He's almost out when Zayn wakes him up with a sudden tap to the bill of his snapback. Niall knits his brows together, says _hey_. Zayn slides the cap off and hangs it on a bedpost, and laughs at his sleepy indignation.

“What was’at for,” Niall says, and Zayn licks his lips.

"Getting in the way."

Niall murmurs _getting in the way of wh -_ but Zayn picks himself up in the same moment, combs a hand through Niall's hair, and then he's kissing Niall and dragging a hand down his side, tugging down at Niall's tank as he goes. Niall runs a hand under Zayn’s shirt, up the planes of his back, and he is _never going to get over how good this feels holy shit_.

Zayn laughs, hushed and into his mouth, and Niall breaks away to grin.

“Said that out loud, didn’t I?” he says, nose pressed to Zayn's cheek and Zayn nods, and ducks his head to Niall's neck.

“I should send you a fruit basket,” Niall says nonsensically, and Zayn snuffles out another laugh.

His lips drag against the line Niall's neck.

“What are you thanking me for?”

“Your mouth,” Niall says, and Zayn snorts, rests his forehead against Niall’s collarbone for a moment to smile. He nips at the base of Niall’s throat, kisses up the line of it to Niall’s jaw, his chin, his mouth. Niall slips a hand down 'til the very tips of his fingers tuck themselves under the waistband of Zayn's jeans, his briefs. Zayn makes this soft, needy sound, clutches a handful of cloth at Niall's waist, at the baggy material of his jeans gathered near his thigh. He shifts a leg between between Niall’s and his palm sweeps along Niall's side, over his chest and back down again; Niall lets out a breath he can't hold it in anymore and Zayn’s fingers brush over bare skin and Niall’s sure his nerves are live wires and

They aren’t going to fuck.

They haven’t yet, and they won’t, not until Niall’s sure Zayn won’t regret it.

And. 

Alright.

It’s definitely not as simple as _I like kissing him, he likes kissing me_. Niall knows that. It just didn't matter as much before, when the torch Zayn was carrying for Liam seemed a whole lot bigger than it does currently, when Niall just kissed him because Zayn was his friend, and he felt like it. Now - now they'll be alone, and Zayn'll give him this _look_ sometimes, this warm little half-smile like he wouldn’t wish it were anyone else in Niall’s place, and Niall thinks _maybe_. Maybe Zayn knows this sort of stopped being about a hook up a long time ago. Maybe he can’t bring himself to talk about what that means yet, so he doesn’t.

Maybe he’s just scared, because this has nothing to do with dating Liam and _everything_ to do with getting over him.

And that's an awful lot of maybes. So they’re not going to fuck, no, because that's a fairly big step considering the situation, and normally this is where Niall would stop them, but - but they can still have some fun, can't they? After all, he has Zayn’s weight pressing down on him, and Zayn’s mouth on his, and Zayn’s hips slowly, _slowly_ grinding against him and there _is_ a tattoo along Zayn’s ribs he wants to introduce himself to.

“ _Do_ you?” Zayn tells him with this endeared amusement, and Niall realizes he’s said the last bit out loud again. Zayn shuffles in closer, noses at Niall's cheek. “You keep mumbling things.”

He kisses Niall again and then pulls away just enough to look and - there. That's the smile.

Zayn scratches the hair at the nape of Niall’s neck with blunt fingernails, contemplative, and then he sits up, knees bracketing Niall’s thigh, and tugs off his shirt.

“Yeah, so,” he pushes the shirt to the edge of Niall’s bed. “You said something about acquainting yourself with my ink?”

“Jesus, I’m so glad we’re friends,” Niall says wonderingly as he tugs Zayn back down and Zayn laughs and says _hmm_ and, “Me, too,” and they don’t speak again until Zayn's on his back, making these stuttering, breathless whimpers and clutching the sheets underneath him with a restless hand as Niall finishes biting a truly impressive mark high on Zayn's side.

Niall licks across Zayn's inked up ribcage with the tip of his tongue, smiles and murmurs conversationally, “Hey, m’Niall.”

Zayn, with a shaky exhale out and an arm flung across his eyes, just laughs.

\---

Of course, the boys find out the next day. They five of them are in the dining hall on campus and Niall’s late for a night class and rushing out goodbyes. Zayn hands him his bag and Niall's not even paying attention, doesn’t realize he’s saying thank you with a kiss until his mouth is on Zayn’s. He pulls away quick, and there’s a moment of _what the fuck just happened_ before Zayn stutters and reminds him that he has class.

Niall books it to his lecture, and suffers a billion texts from Harry in the meantime that range from _WHY DIDN’T YOU TELL ME YOU WERE HOOKING UP WITH HIM_ to _Okay as a FRIEND and FELLOW HUMAN BEING I respect your right to privacy but...........................:’(_ and _YOU’VE HAD YOUR TONGUE... IN HIS MOUTH...... ???????????????_

When Niall responds with, _Ppl are lookin at me like i got a vibrator in my bag STOP TEXTIN ME ILL TALK TO U LATER_ , Harry finally lets up. But when Niall gets back from class, he only tells Harry the vaguest details: just that it happened one night and they never really stopped. He doesn't tell Harry that things between them go back to how they were before. Doesn’t tell him it’s all the same, except for how it isn’t.

Because Niall still wants to kiss Zayn, Niall still _likes_ him, and now he’s certain they’re getting close to a precipice - to Zayn sorting out all the shit in his head that’s gotten jumbled together in the past few months. And Harry might not know everything, but he does know they aren't dating when they _could_ be, so he takes it up as his new personal challenge even when Niall tells him not to interfere (he learned his lesson the first time around, thanks). 

Two weeks before Spring break, when they’re sitting in their room pretending to write essays - really, Harry is making playlists in his iTunes and Niall is sorting the porn bookmarks by type on his browser - Harry tells him there’s an open mic night, and they’re going to perform. 

“Doing what?” Niall asks, and Harry clicks a few things until a song starts. Niall hears the opening bars, the lulling _I don't know you, but I want you all the more for that_ and Harry says they'll switch the instruments up, since it's the only thing Niall knows how to play on the piano.

“The best part is that you can sing it to Zayn,” Harry says, and Niall laughs, loud and surprised.

“What? I’m not singing a song to Zayn. I'm not singing _this_ song to Zayn.”

Harry peers over his laptop at Niall, squints. “Hey. We’re doing it. You’re gonna sing with me because you love me and I’ll be sad if you don’t. And, um. I can maybe let it slip to Zayn after that you’re, y’know.”

“What?”

“Oh - uh. Warm for his form?”

Niall laughs again, but makes no move to actually disagree. Harry sets his laptop to the side and hops onto Niall’s bed, sits down right on top of Niall’s legs. He shifts Niall’s laptop, too, rests his hands on either side of Niall's head. “You know he loves you, right?”

Niall makes a face and Harry shakes his head.

“I mean - how I love you. And how Lou loves you, and Liam loves you. That hasn’t changed. And I know,” Harry lets out a breath, adjusts his knees on the mattress, “I know you still won’t tell me everything and, like. It’s fine. What happened between you two is your business, and I get that. But he used to look so - I don't know, remember when Louis dared Liam to kiss him?" Harry asks, and then frowns.

"Went out for a smoke right after and came back up with red eyes, and I don't think that's a coincidence. Liam’s his best friend, Liam'll _always_ be his best friend, and Zayn said from the start that he never wanted to mess that up, but still. Must suck to know someone can't love you back like... one hundred percent the way you want them to.”

Niall shifts under Harry’s weight.

"Sometimes he got so _intense_ about them - about Liam and Danielle. But lately he's just. He's looked really content, hasn't he? Like he's not thinking about the shit he can't change so much. Or maybe like something's gone and switched stuff around on him, and he's okay with the way the pieces are falling." Harry tilts his head, pensive. "Guess I know why, now.”

Niall chews on the skin at his bottom lip for a moment, then says, “You’re heavy.”

“I know you don’t really give a fuck about a lot of things, but it’s okay to care about this. I mean, you _care_ , you're _you_ ,” he grins, and then stops, and licks his lips out of habit. “But you don’t always have to be so,” Harry waves a hand. "Whatever happens, happens about it."

Niall shrugs, as much as he can with a six-foot-tall boy looming over him, anyway. “I like him, but it's not really up to me to ask him if he could get on with it. Seems presumptuous.”

Harry bites the inside of his cheek for a moment - Niall thinks he might be choking back a retort about vocab lessons - and asks, instead, "D'you think he likes you?"

"Yeah. But he's been hung up on Liam for forever, Harry," he adds with a slight laugh. "Pretty sure this isn't a conclusion he's going to come to easily."

Harry sighs out a _fine_ and leans over more. “Can I at least nudge him in the right direction?"

“Harry, don’t _push_.”

“I’m not pushing him! I can just be like, ‘oh, hey, wow, maybe Niall was singing to you?’” Harry feigns a gasp. “‘What? Oh, I think he likes you, Zayn. I can’t be too sure, though.’ Like little seeds of information planted in his mind. He won’t even know. It’ll be a nice version of subterfuge.”

“That's not what that means at all,” Niall tells him, and Harry smiles.

“Who cares. Point is, I'm not gonna rest until Zayn admits he wants to monogamously touch dicks with you.”

Niall finally starts laughing again as Harry climbs off him and lands with his feet on the floor. He grabs Niall by the ankle, tugs so he’s halfway off the bed as well. “C’mon, I snagged us studio time in one the department buildings so we can practice properly.”

"Christ, fine, if you're not gonna leave me alone about it." Niall steps onto the floor, follows Harry as he makes his way out the door. “I'm still not sure about the song choice, though.”

"I'm sure I can think of something to change your mind.”

They head out, and Harry rests an arm over Niall's shoulders once they're on the sidewalk. "I have another option, if you don't want to sing 'Falling Slowly,'" he says, and when Niall asks what it is, Harry leans into Niall, spreads his arms out wide and sings loud and clear, " _matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match! Find me a find! Catch me a catch!_ " until Niall's practically cackling and tugging Harry's arms down to his side. He gets a hand over Harry's mouth, drowns out the _\- I'll bring the veil you bring - mmmf - !_

Harry licks his hand, because of course he does, and Niall says, "Okay, okay, we'll do the other song!"

Harry lifts an eyebrow, and Niall's the one who sticks out his tongue this time. "Don't gotta look so smug about it, man."

Harry grins against his palm.

\---

This is what happens:

Niall ends up accidentally singing to Zayn anyway, and Zayn watches him the entire time, looking slightly dazed by it all. Then Spring break passes, and the Thursday after they get back, Niall finds himself in his dorm floor's communal kitchen with Zayn pressing him into the counter and his mouth ghosting over Niall’s. He says, with the barest hint of a smile, "I'm sorry it took me so long," and Niall laughs, because he’s never been a particularly patient person, but this sort of feels worth it.

Zayn kisses him, and kisses him, until his phone rings and it's Liam calling, and Liam sounding off, and Liam and his girlfriend breaking up. (It's not a part of the story Niall likes, because he hates that he knows the way Liam's voice sounds when it's broken.) Zayn goes back to their apartment to find out what happened, and Niall tells him to call later - partly because he wants to finish what they started, and partly because Liam’s upset and Niall’s not sure how they’re going to make it better yet.

He’s not sure what he’s expecting when Zayn does call him a few hours later, but it’s definitely not Zayn telling Niall that Liam kissed him. Niall - for a split second - thinks the conversation is going to go an entirely different direction before Zayn explains _it's his way of saying sorry, I guess_ and Niall gets it, he does. It's closure for them, for their friendship. It's that, and nothing else.

It's the kindest kiss off possible for a massive secret that doesn't even exist anymore.

Zayn says, "the only person I want to kiss back is _you_ ," and Harry, who's been butting into Niall's space the entire time in an attempt to listen in, smiles and shoves excitedly at Niall before punching a fist into the air.

Zayn also says, "I like you," and his voice is a little shy but his words are solid and sure, and it's just about the best thing Niall's heard all day.

(It feels nice to say it back and hear Zayn laugh like he’s quietly thrilled by the admission.)

When Niall ends the call with a promise to visit tomorrow, Harry's already got his own phone out.

"Who're you texting?"

Harry doesn't look up from his phone. "Lou. Told him to skip class tomorrow, we've got a Liam Payne to cheer up." He pauses then, and nods to Niall. "Not you, though - at least, not tomorrow. Tomorrow you get to be all cutesy with Zayn because," and he's smiling and digging his elbow into Niall's tummy, "you _like_ him and he _likes_ you and I'm so happy, I want to bake you a cake. Can I bake you a cake?"

"I've never turned down baked goods in my life, Harry," Niall says, and Harry side-tackles him down onto his bed.

He gives Niall an inscrutable look for just a moment. "Hey, have you had sex with him? Like... anything?"

Niall shakes his head. "Nope."

"Hm. Well, happy humping, then," Harry says, and Niall snorts so loud he might have pulled something.

"Subtlety, thy name is Harry Styles."

"Yeah, whatever, blue balls."

\---

See, there's a numbered list in Harry’s phone that goes

_1) Liam falls in love_

_2) Zayn gets to date his best friend_

and they both happen, just not the way anyone thought they would.

\---

Niall goes over Zayn's on a Friday, and spends most of that weekend in Zayn's room.

The first time they have sex, it’s - it’s fumbling and they spend half of it laughing and, okay, at one point Zayn _maybe_ accidentally elbows Niall in the chest, but right now Niall’s in Zayn’s bed (sans Zayn, who’s gone to root through the fridge) wearing decidedly little clothing and inspecting a very nice bruise high up his ribs placed there by an even nicer mouth and, y’know. He likes fumbling.

Niall's got a game paused on the screen and a pair of controllers lying at the foot of the bed when a bottle of beer lands by his hip, and then a bag of Doritos, and then a _boy_ , and Zayn’s got a hand on his neck and he’s giving Niall a kiss that’s mostly a grin. “Snack break,” he says, turning to sit next to Niall and twisting the cap off his own bottle. He takes a pull of the beer, glances at Niall when Niall keeps on staring, and wipes his mouth when he lowers the bottle.

He licks his lips, says, “What?” and Niall smiles, takes the bottle out of Zayn’s grip and his unopened one and leans over to place them both on the floor. He sets the Doritos down next to them, and Zayn says, “Are you ignoring food? _And_ beer?”

“More pressing matters,” Niall says, and Zayn’s already scooting down the bed and onto his back, hand low on Niall’s waist. He kicks the controllers off the bed, doesn't bother to stop to pick them up.

“Yeah,” Zayn murmurs with a little jerk of his chin and a smile. “Like what?”

“Mmm,” Niall tilts his head in consideration, moves so he’s kneeling in between Zayn’s legs. “Mostly stuff involving sex.”

He’s looking down at Zayn, smiling, and he says with a feigned curiosity, “Did you know you still have a whole package of condoms on your bedside table?”

“Considering you brought it and we’ve only used one so far, I’d say I’m aware of that, yeah,” Zayn says, gripping Niall by his hips. "We should keep using them. What if they expire?”

“They’re not going to expire, I bought them -” Niall stops, and makes a face, and Zayn goes _oooh_.

“You bought them recently, didn’t you? Maybe,” Zayn shifts his shoulders, thinking, “this week? Like _maybe_ you thought we’d do this at some point?”

Niall hesitates, and then laughs and says quick, “This morning, but only because I’d gone to get us beer with my brother's ID for tonight, and they were in an aisle I passed and I know it’s overly confident or whatever but, _in my defense_ , I thought if everything went well we’d be doing this sometime in the near future, and I wanted to be prepared.”

Zayn smiles, and runs his thumb over one of Niall's hipbones, and it is _monumentally distracting_. “I’m not saying I find preparedness hot,” he says, “because it’s sorta one of those things you should just do, but I like that you were thinking about it.” He bites his lip, looks unsure suddenly. “How’s it going then? Expectations meeting up with your daydreams?”

“I don’t daydream about you -” Niall stops, again. He drops his head and laughs. “Shut up.”

Zayn's mouth picks up on one end. "Pretty sure it isn't meeting up - think I elbowed you in the solar plexus earlier."

“That was an accident," Niall says. "And anyway, I love this part.”

“What part?”

“The - I don’t know, the new bits. New bodies. Learning what works, and what doesn’t. Finding favorite places.” He studies Zayn for a moment, and then leans forward slow, mouth only a touch away to murmur, “I like knowing that if I hold onto you hard enough the most fucking amazing sound gets caught in your throat.”

Zayn nods along, stares with half-lidded eyes at Niall’s mouth.

“So you may have elbowed me,” Niall says, sitting back up, and a smile already starts to spread over Zayn's face again. “You’re forgetting that I misjudged the size of the bed earlier and almost fell off, so. Whatever. Sex isn’t the same exact thing with every new person, just because you’ve already done it before. That’s boring and - and we have time to get things exactly how we want. Don’t we?”

“Yeah.” Zayn looks decidedly less embarrassed, and Niall thumbs at his bottom lip until Zayn says, “I’m not - I’m not going to freak out. If you’re thinking I might.”

He adjusts his legs, knocks his knee into Niall’s side, on purpose. “I’m - I wasn’t sure about a lot of things this school year, but I’m sure about you, and that’s, um. I’m not really expecting that to change. So. Yeah. We have a lot of time.”

Niall grins at him, and Zayn reaches out to the side for something, “So you can, you know, keep delaying fucking me with extremely chatty foreplay, or…” he trails off, looks back at Niall as he holds a foil wrapper between his index and middle fingers.

Niall reaches for it, leans down again to whisper, “I’m not normally this talkative, it’s mostly because of the friction,” and Zayn shakes his head, exhales with a laugh. His chest is still rumbling when he tugs Niall closer by the nape of his neck to catch the corner of his mouth, and his knees dig into Niall’s sides and he sighs soft and low and -

The _second_ time they have sex, Zayn mutters something after with a tired laugh that sounds an awful lot like _well practice makes perfect right_ and through the haze of coming down, Niall gives him a breathless, lopsided grin and says, “so let’s keep practicing.”

\---

A little while later, when they’re both drifting off to sleep, Zayn calls him a corner piece of a puzzle, whispers it like it doesn’t matter if Niall hears or not, just that it’s _said_ , and well.

Niall _really_ loves this part.

\---

Niall wakes up early Sunday morning, leaves Zayn sleeping as he slides on pajama bottoms that aren't his and pads out the room on soft feet. He feels like he hasn't slept right in days - though, he guesses he _hasn't_ \- and he's rubbing the sleep out his eyes as he heads to the toilet, and then the kitchen, after. He toys briefly with the idea of making a proper breakfast, figures Zayn will appreciate it more if he _didn't_ burn down the kitchen, and he's digging through the fridge for something easy when he hears the front door open.

It's Liam, and he drops his keys onto the kitchen table, sounds pleased when he says, "You're still here."

Niall smiles quick, grabs a bottle of water from the bottom shelf of the fridge. "Where's Harry and Lou?"

"On their way up. Harry's bringing you something."

Niall swishes water around in his mouth, swallows. "How was the distraction weekend, then?"

"Good. Wild." Niall raises an eyebrow, and Liam shakes his head. "I mean - I might have got dared to run around a block naked at one point. I made Louis delete almost all the videos, but he's still got one. Says for 'future blackmailing purposes, cueball.'"

They laugh, and Liam points to his room, heads over with Niall following close behind. Liam's toeing off his shoes when Niall flops down on his bed, asks, "You okay?"

"Fine."

"Really?"

"No," Liam tells him without looking at him. "But - I want to be."

He sighs, scrubs a hand over his head, and sits at the edge of his bed. Niall looks up at him, waits, and Liam sort of just - wilts. Niall frowns, tugs him down by the shoulder. Liam tips on his side, curls up against Niall like a child, almost. "I really thought we'd make it."

Niall clicks his tongue, pulls Liam in a little closer. "You still can."

Liam laughs, and it sounds sad. He falls silent, relaxes against Niall as Niall rubs his back and says, after a while, "I kissed Zayn, when he came back here the other night."

"I know."

"And - it. It wasn't anything, I think I just - it was dumb probably, but I couldn’t - I just did it. I think it was to say sorry."

"Liam, it's not like you ever did anything on purpose."

"Still hurt him unintentionally," Liam says. "...Did you know? How he felt?"

"Yeah, we - me an' Harry - thought we could - you know."

"What?"

"Help him sweep you off your feet. But we're not very good planners, I guess. Not well thought out from the start, that."

"I don't know," Liam says. "Worked out alright, I think."

The front door opens again, and Harry and Louis' voices carry loudly into Liam's bedroom. There's the sound of bags being dropped down onto the kitchen table, and then Harry and Louis bound into Liam's room, dive bomb the bed on either side when they see Liam and Niall lying on it. They're talking over each other, telling Niall about their weekend, and Liam's smiling, which Niall figures is the point.

They all go quiet, and Liam breathes in and out and then sniffs and turns his face into the pillow under their heads. "Everything's all messed up," he whispers, and Niall can feel his chest hitch from where he’s lying against Niall’s side. Harry's arm slides around Liam's middle, and Louis reaches over Niall to swipe a crooked finger under Liam's eye.

Liam always looks younger when he cries - he doesn't do it often, in front of other people. But now he's got his bottom lip poking out and his cheeks look rounder, too, ruddy, more childish. Niall touches his fingers to Liam's chin, says, "Sometimes things are messed up. Sometimes people are messed up, too. And it's not - it's not _bad_. It's... just how things are. And it might take awhile to get back to okay, but. You _can_ get there."

Liam's staring at him, and Niall finishes with, "I think Zayn's okay. I think you'll be okay, too."

"Yeah?"

From the door, they hear, "What, I'm not invited?" and when the four of them look, Zayn's yawning and walking towards the bed. He drops down, slides in between Louis and Niall, presses his nose to the back of Niall's neck. 

"You have us," Harry says gently, and Louis says, "Always, Liam."

"Yeah, don't know if you're aware," Zayn runs sleepy fingers over the arrows that lie across Liam's forearm. "We're sort of a package deal."

Liam's eyes are red-rimmed and glassy when he smiles - just barely, but it's there, and it stays. The five of them have all got permanent fixtures on their bodies for one another - screws on their ankles, tiny little reminders of what they mean to each other, and it's things like this - Liam doubting himself, Liam upset over things in the past he couldn’t ever change and things in the present he wishes he could - when Niall figures that's what those tattoos were for.

It's silly, but they're each other's screws. Because being a best friend means doing what you can to hold someone together when all they want to do is fall apart.

"You'll be okay," Niall tells him, again, and Liam nods along, tired.

"I'll get there."

Thery lapse into another silence before Louis says, "I'd love to stay here forever, but you," he nudges Niall with a foot, "and Zayn reek of sex."

"Have you even showered," Liam says, voice muffled, and Zayn's laughing with his face buried against Niall's shoulder blades.

"Yeah, obviously," Niall says. "But we had sex in there, too."

"Oh, then this means I can give you my present," Harry says, and Liam mutters, "He called them 'Yay, sex!' cupcakes, and if I find icing anywhere in this apartment, I'm going to sue you both for emotional distress."

"They say 'congrats on the penetration pals,' in vanilla icing" Louis tells him, and Harry nods.

"Yeah, but the one with penetration on it was really hard to do. Overestimated the length of the word versus the size of the cupcake."

"I can't even handle the level of double entendre in that sentence," Niall says, and Zayn's just plain snorting now.

Harry shifts, moves to sit up. "Come on, there's five of them, we can all have one."

"That's really thoughtful, Harry."

"I try."

\---

Zayn walks Niall back to his dorm hall that night, smiles when they stop just in front. He's got his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans and he puffs his cheeks out and exhales loudly, kicking at the ground. "So."

"So," Niall says, and then waits a beat before he grins and tugs on Zayn's arm to tug him for a kiss. Zayn's hand slips out of his pocket and comes to rest at Niall's waist, and when they pull apart, he's smiling.

"I was thinking," Niall says, and Zayn hums and digs his fingers into Niall's back until Niall stumbles into him and laughs. "I was _thinking_ maybe we could do something next weekend? Like, dinner. Or a movie."

"Dinner and a movie?"

"Yeah, whatever is fine with me."

Zayn looking at him, smiling small now. "I - yeah. Yeah, how about - um. Friday?"

"Friday," Niall nods, steps back to let Zayn leave. "Yeah, cool. I'll see you then?"

"Alright," Zayn takes a few steps backwards down the block, so he can look at Niall. He waves, and laughs at himself for waving. "I'll - I'll text you? I'll text you."

Niall nods, and Zayn turns away, scratching at his hair as he heads further down the block. He only makes it a few feet before he does an about-face, and points a hand like he's aiming for casual.

"That's - that's a date, right? Friday's a date?"

"Friday's a date," Niall confirms, grinning.

\---

Friday comes, and Niall barely knocks on the door to Zayn’s apartment before Zayn's yanking it open like he's been waiting. Niall gives a joking little _ta-da!_ hand gesture - he’s worn his favorite jeans, the black ones with the zippers down the side and that denim jacket with the leather sleeves Harry says makes him look like he’s leader of a biker gang for grandmothers. Zayn leans against the door frame and gives him a once over. Niall feels the tips of his ears start to heat up in the silence and he lowers his hands. “What?” 

"Nothing,” Zayn shakes his head, bites his bottom lip as he grins. “You look good. You look - you look hot."

Niall pulls a face, and laughs. "I can clean up well, from time to time."

"Thought your wardrobe was just snapbacks and nip slip tanks, to be honest," Zayn tells him, and Niall pulls at the shirt on his chest to look down its front.

"No nip slips today."

"Shame," Zayn says.

\---

"This is a nice place," Niall leans back on his side of the booth they've been seated at, glances around the restaurant. "Casual, but not like. Fast food casual. Affordable dining prices casual."

"Liam recommended it, said they have great food."

"Hm," Niall still scanning the place. There's a couple a few tables away, but they're covered by another partition. "We're sorta in the corner, aren't we? Not a lot of people around."

Zayn looks over his shoulder, turns back to Niall, confused. "...Yeah?"

Niall shrugs. "Could totally,” he casually pumps his fist up towards his mouth as he tongues the inside of his cheek, and Zayn chokes on a laugh and leans forward. "What, like on the table?"

"No, under," Niall leans forward too, and they have a staring contest for a few moments before Niall breaks out into little huffs of breathless laughter.

Zayn says, "You wouldn't."

"Nah, we'd get kicked out if they caught us." Niall pats his stomach. "And I'm starving."

Zayn’s sitting back now, an arm resting on the back of his booth. The corner of his mouth lifts and, "Dare you?"

Niall raises an eyebrow.

"You dare me to blow you under the table? Haven't Liam and Harry been through this already? It never ends well."

"Oh, so you're chicken," Zayn nods, placating. "Got it."

Niall waits a beat, and then two, and when he looks around and doesn't find anyone heading towards them, ducks under the table. Zayn shoots forward, his hand just grazing the top of Niall's head before he disappears and he hisses, "Niall! Niall, what the hell are you - I was _joking_ , Christ - shit, Niall get up, Niall _the waitress is coming_ -"

Zayn cuts himself off, and Niall tucks himself against the partition on one end of their booth, sees shoes that probably belong to the waitress stop in front of the table. Niall wraps his fingers around Zayn's ankle, and Zayn ducks a hand under the table to swat at his shoulder.

"Ready to order?" The waitress says, and Niall bites Zayn's hand, and then, after a bit of consideration, his wrist.

"Ha," Zayn pokes his cheek, shifts in his seat to hide what's going on, "I, uh. Haven't actually - _oh, God_ \- "

Niall grabs his hand, takes Zayn's middle finger into his mouth until his tongue hits the band of the ring Zayn's got on. He gets his teeth around it, pulls it off and despite the jittery way Zayn's moving, he sags forward even more, spreads his legs out.

Niall spits the ring out and tucks it into his back pocket. 

Then he fist bumps himself.

"- ha," Zayn curls into the table even more when Niall kisses his knee, "I haven't had a chance to, uh. Um."

Niall waits a moment, and then, as quietly as possible, flicks open Zayn's button fly. He smooths a hand over Zayn's dick through his briefs; he's not _really_ going to do it, but he feels a laugh building up anyway when one of Zayn's legs jerks up at the touch and his knee hits the underside of the table.

" _Jesus_ ," Zayn laughs weakly, coughs, and the waitress says, slowly, "I... can... come back?"

"Yeah," Zayn's voice comes out higher than usual, and he clears his throat. Niall figures he's suffered enough, and starts to back away. "Yeah, that'd be -"

Zayn pauses when he realizes Niall's resurfacing, and when he pokes his head back up, the waitress makes a sound that's like a half-squeak, half-laugh. She holds the order pad up to her mouth to hide a smile, and Zayn buried his face in his hands. Niall's cheeks are red, but he grins easy when he pulls the ring out of his pocket and places it on the screen of Zayn's phone.

"Dropped your ring, man. So forgetful," he says, casual, and then looks up at the waitress. "Can I get a glass of water? Haven't really had a chance to look at the menu yet, either."

She drops the order pad, actually bites her lip to hold back a retort - if it were Louis taking their order, Niall thinks he'd say something along the lines of _of course not, we don't print menus with special ink on your boyfriend's crotch_ \- and says, "Sure thing. And you?" she asks Zayn, who appears to be trying to erase himself out of existence by sheer force of will alone.

"Water." He closes his eyes, and he's smiling a little, too. "Just - water. Please."

"Coming right up," she says, and Niall doesn't think he's imagining the emphasis on the first word.

"Well, something's gonna," Niall says, and the waitress can't hold back a laugh as she walks away.

Once they have their food, and Niall's assured Zayn that, yes, they'll probably be able to come here again (eventually - possibly when they hire an all new wait staff), Niall traps one of Zayn's boots in between his own, runs the edge of his shoe up and down over Zayn's ankle. Zayn smiles down as his plate.

"You seem content," Niall comments.

Zayn shrugs. "I just really like this restaurant."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Zayn bumps Niall's shin with the toe of his boot, gentle. He glances up, adds, "I really like you, too."

Niall grins. "More than the restaurant?"

"More than my _Coke_ , even," Zayn says.

\---

They walk back to Zayn's, hands brushing together occasionally, and they make their way the stairs and to his front door. Zayn unlocks it, steps inside and leans with his hip against the door. He says, "I had fun tonight."

Niall nods, and smiles down between them. "Yeah, me too."

"So." Zayn clears his throat, rests a hand against the door frame and taps it with jittery fingers. "Um - what now?"

"Mm,” Niall raises a shoulder, still smiling. “First dates usually involve first kisses at the end of the night?"

"Yeah, I can do that," Zayn murmurs, and gets a hand on Niall’s waist to tug him close. Niall stumbles into the kiss, laughing, and Zayn has a hand on his neck to hold him place. He kisses the corner of his mouth, quick and sweet, and when he pulls away, he's standing on the other side of the threshold once more. Niall's grinning, and he opens his mouth to say something - he’s thinking of settling on _do that again_ \- when Zayn reaches out to shake his hand, says, “Okay, goodnight,” and closes the door.

With Niall on the other side of it.

Niall stares for a moment, dumbfounded, says, “Zayn, wha - ” and then the door opens again and Zayn’s yanking Niall into the apartment with a laugh. Niall mutters _asshole_ but he’s smiling, hands on Zayn’s hips, as he kicks the door shut behind him.

“Sorry,” Zayn smiling, his hands unfurling under Niall’s jaw. “Your face was cute, though.”

"Cruel, fucking cruel," Niall says, slips his fingers under Zayn’s shirt.

“That was for the restaurant.”

“I was dared to do that. This is unfair. Unjust. I demand a recount.”

“Fine.” Zayn kisses him again, and then in one fluid motion, drops down to his knees. "I'll make it up to you.”

Niall thunks his head against the door. What a nice turn of events.

“Jesus Christ.” He curls a hand into Zayn’s hair, looks down. “Floor’s hard. Your knees'll bruise.”

Zayn shoots him a supremely unimpressed look, like _why do you give a fuck about my knees when my mouth is this close to your dick_ , but - really - bruised knees _hurt_ , Niall’s just looking out for him.

He shifts on the balls of his feet, says, “Hold on,” and heads towards the sofa.

“Niall, seriously?” Zayn glances over his shoulder, and in the next moment, Niall’s back, throw pillow in hand.

“Here,” he says, and crouches down so he can set it on the floor in front of his feet. Zayn rolls his eyes, but scoots his knees up onto it, anyway.

“You’re weird,” he says.

“Not as weird as you." Niall leans heavily against the door, and Zayn gets open his fly, glances up.

“Wanna bet?” he asks, roughly tugging Niall’s jeans down to his thighs, and Niall responding laugh is shaky.

“Maybe you should put your money where your mouth is.”

“Money anywhere near my mouth right now is not really conducive to sucking you off,” Zayn says, but he’s laughing, too, and then rests his forehead against Niall’s hip. “Hey, you make me really happy, you know?”

“Are you talking to my dick, or me?”

Zayn tilts his head, like he’s seriously considering the question, and then curls his fingers over the top of Niall’s briefs, slides that down to his thighs, too. Niall shifts against the door, tongue darting out to lick his bottom lip. Zayn smiles up at him and gives a cheerful, little shrug. 

“Both, I guess.”

\---

In April, Niall tells Zayn he's going to Ireland for the summer, and Zayn tells Niall that instead of thinking too much about something that's not happening for a couple months, he's going to cook Niall dinner. Liam heads out for the night, and Zayn refuses to let Niall help as he sets up pots and pans, gets out a box of pasta. He finally sets their plates down - spaghetti and meatballs - and sits on a diagonal to Niall, at the kitchen table.

Niall looms over his plate, pushes one of the meatballs towards Zayn with his nose and watches Zayn try not to smile.

“You tryna _Lady and the Tramp_ me?” he says, and Niall shrugs, nudges the meatball again.

“Depends.”

“On?”

“Whether or not it’s working, mostly.”

Niall sits up with a smile, reaches out to grip the bottom of Zayn’s chair and jerk it across the tiled floor, towards him. “Hiya,” he says, and Zayn leans forward and licks the spaghetti sauce off the tip of his nose. He laughs, keeps laughing when Niall kisses him, but it gives way to a soft exhale when Niall’s hand starts to creep up the inseam of his jeans. Zayn’s gripping Niall's jaw with a hand, and he breaks away, close enough so that his mouth is hovering over Niall’s, says, “I know I’m supposed to be Lady in this scenario, bashful or coy or whatever -”

“Yeah,” Niall says, hushed, and darts forwards, nips the corner of Zayn’s bottom lip.

“But, I…”

Niall’s hand is an insistent, hot press and he grins when Zayn doesn’t finish his sentence. “What?”

“I,” Zayn laughs, “I don’t remember,” he says, and gets up so he can sit over one of Niall’s thighs instead. He’s got a knee on the chair, in between Niall’s legs, and a foot planted on the ground, with his arms circled loosely around Niall’s shoulders. Niall twists the cloth of Zayn’s shirt in his hand against the small of Zayn’s back, runs a thumb back and forth along Zayn’s side.

Zayn tucks his fingers under Niall’s snapback, grips his hair and _pulls_ and Niall’s gives this soft, low whine in the back of his throat. He says, “Fuck - no,” and he’s pushing at Zayn, lifting him up a bit, “get on - table.”

“Wait - what?” Zayn can’t seem to catch his breath and Niall pushes Zayn up again with his knee. “Table. Sit.”

“On the table?”

“Easier,” Niall says, and Zayn leans back on Niall’s thigh, reaches behind him to push their drinks and still-warm plates to the other side. He lifts off the chair with his knee and sits perched on the edge. Niall scoots his chair in and starts undoing Zayn’s belt; Zayn says something that sounds like the start of a curse and knocks the back of Niall’s cap up to tuck his fingers into Niall’s hair again. The sound Niall makes this time around is most definitely not a _whine_.

“We should,” Zayn tugs on his hair again, like he can’t help it, “bedroom.”

“Involves moving,” Niall says, and noses along the open fly of Zayn’s jeans.

“Jesus,” Zayn exhales on a shaky breath and manages a weak, “We - eat on this?”

Niall looks up at him, slides the brim of his snapback around. 

“Fuck it,” he says, “I’ll buy a new one.”

\---

The Monday before term ends, Niall's in one of the school cafés getting a bottle of soda and a brownie during the break he has between classes when Zayn calls him and says _I love you_ for the first time.

(Well. Not the first time. But there's loving someone, and there's being _in_ love with someone, and Niall knows this I love you is different from the dozens of other times Zayn's said it to him this year.)

Niall ends the call when he has to pay for his things - he's supposed to be meeting some friends before his next class starts anyway - and he’s stuffing the brownie and bottle into his messenger bag one-handed and heading outside a few minutes later when he sees Zayn pushing the door to the building open right in front of him. Niall smiles bemusedly and slows his steps. "Zayn? What are you - ?” 

He cuts himself off when Zayn grabs him by the strap of his bag, pulls him firmly to the right of the door and into the stairwell. He backs Niall into the corner, says, “Sorry,” but Niall just laughs. “I wanted - ”

Zayn presses his mouth Niall’s, quick. Niall makes a noise of surprise, but by the time he recovers enough to grip Zayn’s elbow with his other hand, they’re already separating.

“Um,” Niall’s biting down a smile, “hi?”

“Sorry,” Zayn repeats, “It’s just - I love you?” he rushes out, like it’s a question, and laughs and pulls a face. “And - I said it over the _phone_ first and - that was - I should have said it in person. So, um. You know. I love you.”

Students trickle into the stairwell every other moment, and a few glance their way, but Niall just scratches at the hair on the nape of Zayn’s neck, smiles a little helplessly in response. Zayn grins back, out of breath, and Niall asks, amused, ”Zayn, did you run here?”

Zayn shakes his head.

“No,” he says. Then: “Yes. Maybe. It was like, light jogging, tops.”

Niall laughs, and is maybe contemplating not leaving this stairwell, ever, but then he remembers that, right, he’s got friends waiting for him in the quad so they can head to class together. He tells Zayn as much, who says, “Yeah,” and doesn’t step aside to let Niall move.

Niall’s still got Zayn by the elbow, so he tugs him in again, and he feels Zayn smile against his mouth before Zayn says, softly, “Love you.” He buries his head in Niall’s neck, laughs. “I am really in love with you.”

Niall can feel his cheeks burning, but he teases with, “Your timing is awful, I have class in like twenty minutes.”

Zayn laughs, and swats gently at his side. “Say it back, yeah?"

Niall presses the pad of his thumb to the corner of Zayn’s mouth, and smiles. “I love you, too.”

“Ha,” Zayn shifts, says, “I'll let you go now." He's got his forehead resting against Niall's and he says, "You're coming home tonight, right?”

Niall quirks an eyebrow. “Home?”

Zayn's still smiling. “I mean, you're coming to mine?”

Niall shrugs, and he’s leaning in to kiss Zayn again. “Same difference.”

\---

June comes quicker than Niall wants it to. He wakes up the morning he's supposed to get on a plane (first, to his hometown, where his brother's already been for a week - and then another flight the next day with the rest of his family to Ireland) with Zayn sleeping next to him. He hits the snooze button on his phone's alarm clock. A dozen times. He's thinking of hitting it continuously for the rest of the day until Liam, ever the early riser, finally pounds on the door of Zayn's bedroom, says, "We've let you sleep for an extra hour - Niall, if you don't get up now, you'll miss your flight!"

"Good," Zayn croaks, and curls into him, nuzzles his face back and forth into his pillow.

Niall rubs his eyes, and nudges Zayn's cheek with his nose. "C'mon, he's right."

"No, he's not," Zayn mutters.

("Yeah, I am," Liam says from behind the door.)

Niall pats his arm, runs a thumb over Zayn's cheekbone until Zayn opens his eyes. He sighs, tugs Niall closer with the arm slung low across his hips. "Don't go," he says, and shuts his eyes again. "I changed my mind, I don't want you to go."

"You can't change your mind," Niall laughs. "Sorta already in the works."

"Nooo," Zayn pulls until Niall's halfway on top of him, circles his arms across Niall's back. "You can't, I won't let you."

"You're gonna octopus hug me forever?"

"Yes," Zayn says, and wraps his legs around Niall’s to prove his point. He moves a hand to the back of Niall's neck. "Stay, please."

"You know I can't."

"Yeah," Zayn lets out a breath. "I know." He presses their mouths together again. "I just want to say it. So _you_ know."

"Ten weeks," Niall says, "that's all. Ten weeks."

"Won't get to do any fun summer stuff with you," Zayn says, and Niall moves so he's straddling Zayn just under his hips.

"Next year," Niall promises, and Zayn gives him a half-smile at that: hopeful and happy but a little upset, too. Niall repeats, softer now, "Next year.”

Zayn trails a hand down, runs a finger over the screw tattoo he knows is on Niall's ankle from memory. "Okay, yeah. Next year."

Niall's brows knit together and he leans down, hand on Zayn's jaw, to kiss him hard on the mouth. When he draws away, Zayn presses his thumbs to the corners of Niall's mouth, lifts up gently. 

"Don't frown, babe," he says, and they hear a groan from the other side of the door before Louis barges in, Harry and Liam close behind.

"There's only so much I can _take_ ," Louis says, and flips off the covers. "Oh, hey, you're not naked."

"No," Zayn says, unnecessarily, and Niall climbs off him to drop down next to him instead.

Louis crawls over to Niall, crawls on _top_ of Niall, and bites his neck. "We really do have to leave,” he says. “I'm sorry. I told Liam to give you another half hour, but he says it's best to arrive at the airport two hours before your departure time. You know how he is about these things."

"Just because you dive head first into everything doesn't mean we all have to," Liam says with his fingers wrapped around Zayn's wrist, and Louis blindly flips him off with his mouth still attached to Niall's neck.

"I'm going to bruise there if you keep biting," Niall says, but doesn't stop him.

"I know. It's a going away present."

"He was going to slap you in the balls first," Harry says muffled from under Zayn's arm. 

"Be thankful I convinced him to go for the second option."

\---

Niall spends the entire ride to the airport in the backseat of Liam's car, sandwiched between Zayn and Harry. Harry's got his head pillowed on Niall's shoulder while Zayn runs his fingers up and down over Niall's wrist. It's quiet - quieter than Niall thought it'd be - with the only sounds in the car coming from the radio volume on low and Harry humming along to what's playing.

Louis exhales loudly, after fifteen minutes of almost-silence. He starts to say, “Jesus, we’re not tying him to a rocket and propelling him into _space_ ,” and then stops, looks down. He unbuckles himself out of his seat in the next moment, turns and launches himself into the back.

Liam swerves the car, says, “Shit - Louis, a little warning, first!”

Louis’ got his face buried in Niall’s neck as Liam pulls off to the side of the road and turns on the blinkers. Louis' legs are all twisted up behind him, half in the backseat half in front, and he says, “Not a word,” to Niall, preemptively.

Niall smiles, just a bit, circles his free arm around Louis’ waist the same time Zayn brushes his hand down and slides their fingers together. Liam rubs a hand over his buzzcut, glances at the four of them in the back, and Harry says, forlornly, “This is not a nice start to our summer.”

Liam sighs then, and climbs into the back, too, after Louis re-adjusts his limbs. He sits crammed on Zayn’s knee, arched over because he’s too tall to straighten his back out properly, and he scratches at his hair, shakes his head at Zayn.

“And you made fun of Louis for having separation anxiety,” he tells Zayn, whose mouth twitches up briefly. Liam frowns, ducks down a little more. “Now I don’t want to drive, I can’t hug anyone while driving.”

“Then we’ll call a driver,” Louis says, and Niall laughs.

“I can get my dad’s friend to come probably,” Harry says, and they all look at him. “Paul? Manages a chauffeur business or something. Or,” Harry looks up, squints a little. “Or - wait, he might be a security guard - I always forget. But I know he drives people places sometimes.”

There's a beat, and Harry shrugs. "What, he's nice! I mean, he never smiles, but I think he's nice."

“No,” Liam puffs out his cheeks, lets out a breath. “It's fine, I can drive.”

“I’ll drive,” Louis says, and Liam pushes off of Zayn and shoots him a look like Louis' just offered to pedal them to the airport via unicycle.

“Um, no thanks, Louis. I’d like us to get there alive.”

“Oh, we’ll get there fine, move,” Louis clambers into the front again, squishes an elbow into Niall’s thigh and steps on Zayn's boot in the process. He pushes Liam towards the passenger seat, and finally plops down in front of the wheel, before twisting around and giving Niall an expectant look.

“But I get to hug you longest, when we say goodbye.”

“Sure,” Niall agrees, and he feels Zayn press a kiss to his jaw, and Niall grips his hand tighter, amends: “Second longest.”

“Deal,” Louis says as he turns in his seat. He pulls out of the spot, taps his fingers against the wheel. It’s silent again, as they get to a stop light, and then Louis asks,

“Hey, how awesome would it be if I pretended we were in a car chase scene?”

Liam very deliberately thunks his head against his window a few times.

“Gonna miss this,” Niall says with a grin, and Harry grins back and pats his head.

“We’ll miss you too,” he says.

\---

Eight weeks in, Niall's in bed and listening to a mix Harry sent him the day before - it's called "Niall's In Another Country And Everyone Is Sad :(" - and he gets to "Transatlanticism," and the softly song, repetitive _I need you so much closer_ when he feels suddenly, intensely, homesick and bestfriendsick and Zaynsick. He closes his laptop, curls up under his blanket and listens to his brother snore in the bed across from his. Then he grabs his phone from the bedside table, thumbs down his contact list. He has to get up early the next morning so he can't even talk long, but he calculates the time where Zayn is - little after three, so he's probably still up, since it's the weekend - and gives his [WhatsApp](http://www.whatsapp.com) a try anyway:

 **Niall**  
Heyyy

It only takes a moment for the little _typing..._ to appear at the top of the screen, under Zayn’s name.

 **Zayn**  
Hiiiiii babeeeeeee :D hpw r u????? 

**Niall**  
Hahaha , u drunk? 

**Zayn**  
No  
Aha k yehh harry and Lou came to visit me n li at home :)  
I wish u were here too :( 

**Niall**  
Couple more weeks and i will be!!!! 

**Zayn**  
Heyy iwas thinknign  
I want u to come here when u get bcack  
My house imean  
Meet my parents over the hooldiays or something  
Ud wanna do that? 

**Niall**  
:) 

**Zayn**  
:) :) :D  
Hey olive u  
HAHA I LOVE  
U  
Olive u!!!!!!! :D 

**Niall**  
Olive u too ya drunkard  
Now go hang with our friends before Lou steals ur phone hahahaha 

**Zayn**  
U habe to go??? :((((((( 

**Niall**  
Supposed to be up early tmrw :(  
Couldnt sleep! 

**Zayn**  
Ud be able too if I was there obvs!!!!  
I miss sleepin w u  
Not sex sleep aha sleep sleep  
ZzzzzzZZZZZzzzzzzz 

**Niall**  
Hahaha I got it!!! I miss the other thing too tho ;) 

**Zayn**  
Haha me toooooo ;D  
WAIT  
DONT GO TO SLEEP YET  
IM SNEDING SOMETHING WE TOOK AEARLIER 

It takes a few minutes, but then a media attachment appears below the message. Niall taps View, and a photo opens up of the four of them bundled up in scarves and coats and gloves, sitting on the front steps of what Niall figures is Zayn’s house:

Louis’ caught mid-laugh, head thrown back and nose crinkled, and Harry’s making a monkey face at the camera phone, cheeks puffed out and fingers pulling at his ears. Liam is next to Louis with the jacket under his coat pulled up over the top of his head like Cornholio. Zayn's leaning into Harry, arm stretched out in the corner of the screen, clearly trying to get everyone in the frame. He's grinning, tongue stuck out to side, and it's blurry and funny and really sort of perfect. 

**Zayn**  
OK GO 2. SLEEP  
AND THEN COME.HOMEEEEEE 

**Niall**  
Soon!!!  
Say hi to the boys for me ok?? 

**Zayn**  
They said to come.home 2##$""""""""""""  
TELL UR BF 2 STOP HOGGING U  >:(((  
THIS IS LOUIS BTW  
ZAYN TRIED 2 LOCK HIMSELF IN THE BATHROOM SO I WOULDNT TAKE HIS PHONE  
HAD 2 USE LIAM AS A BATTERING RAMMmnnbbvwvvqqq  
oh my goooooood louis is so stupiddddddd 

(Niall's stifling laughs into his pillow at this point.)

 **Zayn**  
Hiiiii niall :)))))  
Harry is cryin a lil but hes drunkkkk n he sed hell buy u a tic 2 cum homw tomorrow 

**Niall**  
Hahahaha sup Lemo :) 

**Zayn**  
Lemoooooooooooo :)  
MIss youu!!!!!!!!!!!!  
I m giving it back to zayn now buy love u 

(Niall can picture them crawling over each other here.)

 **Zayn**  
Sry... :) 

**Niall**  
Dont mind hahaha  
Gnite , love u 

**Zayn**  
I love u 2  
Niiiiiiiight 

**Niall**  
Byeeeeee 

**Zayn**  
No U hang up first ? 

**Niall**  
Hahahahaha NITE Z , for real 

**Zayn**  
:************* 

Niall sets the photo Zayn sent him as his background display, then puts his phone under his pillow. He grabs his iPod off the bedside table next to him and plugs his earbuds in. He's got Harry's mix on there, too, and he's drifting off to a Justin Bieber track - Harry knows him so well - when he feels his phone vibrate under his head. Zayn’s sent him another message.

Justin croons _don't you worry, 'cause everything's gonna be alright_ and -

 **Zayn**  
Nvr loved any1 asmuch as ilove u babe

\- Niall falls asleep smiling.

\---

Zayn Skypes him the next night, and the first thing he says is, "I asked you to meet my parents. Over winter break."

"You did."

"You said yeah, right. Like, the little smiley was a yeah?"

"Yep."

"And you're - you're moving in with me, when you get back."

"You're asking me questions you already know the answers to," Niall says, and Zayn runs his fingers through his hair, lets it flop back down over his forehead.

"I know, I just want to be sure that this is actually happening."

"I can pinch you in two weeks, give or take a few days."

Zayn gives him a funny sort of look at that, pulls a leg up to his chest as he sits on his bed. "I'm probably gonna blow you in the bathroom of the airport when we pick you up."

"I can catch a flight out tomorrow," Niall says promptly, and Zayn rests his chin on his knee and laughs.

He says softly, "Don't," and his smile fades when he adds, "I just want you here already."

"Don't worry," Niall tells him, "I'll be leaving clothes on the floor of your room soon enough."

"Our room," Zayn corrects with a slight smile, and Niall grins.

"Yeah, right. Our room."

\---

"I'm not sitting in the back," Louis scoffs, and shoves gently at Harry. "Harry, you sit in the back."

"This is a new shirt, don't really feel like getting come on it," Harry muses as he peddles along Niall's suitcase. "Liam, you sit in the back."

"I," Liam says, twirling his keys, "am driving."

Niall laughs, kissing Zayn off-center as they walk, and he sees Liam glance over his shoulder. "Oh God, they're gonna get come in my car, aren't they?"

Louis waggles his fingers, says, “All the little crevices," in a high, creepy voice.

"We can _hear_ you," Zayn says, not even bothering to look at them. He moves Niall's carry-on out of the way, palms his jaw with both hands and stops walking long enough to kiss him properly.

"I'm calling you a cab," Liam half-heartedly threatens, but when Niall looks towards the three of them again, Liam's smiling. 

"Not gonna fuck in your car, Liam," Niall tells him. "Promise."

"Wonderful," Liam intones as they near it. Harry and Louis stuff themselves into the front seat, Harry facing the back like he's going to _watch_ \- and Niall shrugs his carry on off and into the backseat on top of the suitcase Harry's thrown back there as well. He looks over the top of the car just before Liam slides into the driver's side seat to say,

"Well. Not while you're in it, anyway."

\---

Niall's half-lying along the length of the backseat, his back pressed awkwardly against the door, with Zayn straddling his lap. He's hunched over, a hand tugging down the neckline of Niall's tank, and sucking what is definitely going to be a noticeable mark into Niall's collarbone. Liam glances over his shoulders and says, "For the love of _all that is good and right in this world_."

"Not sex," Zayn rushes out, breathless. Niall glances over his shoulder, can see Harry hanging over the passenger seat, Louis' head somewhere near his armpit, watching.

"Perv," he says with a grin, and Harry shrugs.

"Not the one rutting against someone like a bunny in the backseat of a very small car, am I?"

Niall makes a jerking motion with his fist over Zayn’s back at Harry, who pretends to wipe his cheek. Zayn switches to the other side of Niall's neck, murmurs, "I missed you so much."

Niall says, "Missed you too," and the vague Irish accent he picked up while there curls around his tongue and his tongue curls around Zayn's and Zayn holds Niall's face in his hands and smiles.

Liam turns the volume on the radio up. Someone (Louis) slaps his hand away and turns it down. Harry laughs.

"I get why people think we just spend all our time touching each other now."

"We actually slept in a pile on Louis’ bed yesterday," Liam says.

Zayn runs his hands up Niall’s sides, rests the tips of his fingers against Niall's hip, his elbow, his chin, like he can't decide where he wants to land and needs to touch him everywhere because Niall's here in front of him when he wasn’t before. Niall holds onto his waist, slides his hands down into Zayn’s back pockets, digs his fingers in.

"Do you guys need a condom," Louis asks.

"Don't enable them," Liam tells him, and Louis shrugs, grips Harry by his waist when the car turns a corner so he doesn't tip over.

"Lee-yum," he says chidingly as they pull up to a red light on the next street. "I'm trying to be a caring friend here. Are you saying you _don't_ want them to be safe?"

"Lou, have you ever been pushed out of a moving vehicle," Liam asks, offhand.

There's a beat, and then Harry silently reaches out and locks the doors.

\---

Niall stumbles out of Zayn’s room the morning after he comes back -

( _theirs_ , Zayn has to keep reminding him, mostly because it makes Niall smile, and Zayn did say that was what he wanted.)

\- and makes his way into the kitchen for coffee, toast, anything to settle the grumbling in his stomach. He finds a bowl of fruit on the counter, pulls himself up next to it and starts to peel a banana. Zayn trudges out of the bedroom then and into the bathroom and it’s only when the sink starts running that Niall notices the kitchen table looks any different.

He takes a bite out of the banana, and Zayn finally trails into the kitchen with a yawn, idly scratching at his chest. He pauses midway to Niall, and squints at the table.

“What the fuck?”

Niall takes a bite of his banana, points with it. “Think that’s plastic wrap.”

“Around the table?” Zayn’s voice is still rough with sleep, and he blinks a little, runs a hand over the plastic that meticulously covers it. “And the chairs?”

“There’s a note,” Niall points again, and Zayn swipes it off the table as he pads over to him. (Zayn’s wearing Hulk slippers Harry got him that make growling noises if he stamps his feet hard enough, and Niall tries not to feel too endeared by it.)

He holds out the banana when Zayn gets there as an offering. Zayn looks at it, at Niall, and when Niall jokingly holds it up to his mouth and bobs his head, Zayn shakes his head and glances back down at the note.

“It’s too early for fruit-based innuendos,” he says, even though he’s smiling.

“It is never too early for an innuendo, has being friends with Louis taught you nothing?" Niall looks down. "What’s the note say?”

Zayn holds it up so they can both read it:

** FOR EATING **

(underlined three times)

** NOT SEX THINGS **

“He’s really adamant about the table,” Zayn says. “Like, he cleans it periodically now.”

“I liked the table,” Niall says, and sets aside the half-eaten banana. “The table and I have fond memories.”

Zayn’s grinning now, and he turns so he’s in between Niall’s legs. Zayn kisses him, says, “Hey, so the table’s off limits, clearly.”

“Fairly dangerous, too, I think.” Niall runs a finger along the tattoo on Zayn’s ribcage. “Wrong amount of bodily fluids and you’ll slip right off.”

“Yeah, completely hazardous. And I’m cold, and that plastic stuff doesn’t look like it’ll warm me up.”

“You should try wearing more than this,” Niall snaps at the waistband of his briefs, and Zayn raises an eyebrow.

“I got these from your drawer.”

(Niall has a _drawer_ \- he has several drawers and half the closet and that one corner because Zayn really did move his comic books and Niall is just

In love with the space he’s carved in Zayn’s life.)

“Thief,” Niall says lightly, and digs the heels of his feet into the backs of Zayn’s legs to pull him closer. “Anyway, I can help with the heat thing.”

“So can the sofa,” Zayn says, his fingers absently dipping under the collar of Niall’s shirt. (It’s actually the shirt Zayn was wearing when they picked Niall up, but Niall is positive he doesn’t mind the hypocrisy of Niall stealing his clothes, too.)

“The sofa isn’t covered in plastic wrap,” Niall grins, and Zayn shakes his head.

He pushes his nose against Niall’s, says, “Brush your teeth. If we’re going to frighten one of our best friends out of sitting on any sort of flat surface in this place, I at least want you to have minty fresh breath while we do it.”

Niall snorts, but takes his hands back and hops off the counter anyway, Zayn still in front of him. He pats Zayn’s side, says, “Do it,” as he heads to the bathroom.

“You know,” he can hear Zayn call from the kitchen still. “I think what first attracted me to you was your maturity.”

Niall grabs his toothbrush out of the holder (their holder) squeezes toothpaste onto it (their toothpaste, the one Zayn bought before Niall got back, because it’s Niall’s favorite brand). He’s spitting into the sink when Zayn comes walking in and starts nudging him towards the tub. Niall manages to stick his toothbrush back into the holder, laughs when Zayn tugs on his shirt, hands tickling up Niall’s side.

“What’re you doing?”

“Shower first,” Zayn says, and Niall tilts his head.

“Probably more logical to take a shower after, huh?”

Zayn twists his mouth up, says, “Shower later, too?” and he’s turning on the faucet with a hand on Niall’s hip in their bathroom, in their building.

Something pleasant swoops low in Niall’s belly, and he wonders if the change in possession will ever lose its quality.

Zayn’s looking at him now, and when Niall’s grin breaks even wider Zayn reaches up and taps the shower head thoughtfully.

“Our shower,” he says, and Niall laughs, and hopes it feels this new forever.

\---

A few weeks before school starts, Zayn wakes Niall up from a nap on the sofa by pouncing on him, and when Niall's done groaning and opens his eyes, Zayn says, "Hey, I made you a present."

"Yeah, what?"

Zayn holds something up, and Niall squints. "Are those pieces of macaroni?"

"Yeah."

"You made me a macaroni necklace?" Niall asks, and sits up so Zayn can lift it over his head. Zayn lets his fingers trail over the nape of Niall's neck, down his chest.

"I did," he says, and Niall fiddles with it. 

"I'm thinking I should ask why."

"Dropped the box of mac and cheese I was gonna cook accidentally," Zayn says. "Figured I'd make use of the unusable pieces. Do you like it?"

"I love it," Niall says, very seriously, "It's _beautiful_ and I'm never taking it off. How do I look?"

Zayn leans into his space, his hands holding himself up on the sofa cushions, and he whispers, "Very cute."

Niall smiles with his gaze on Zayn's mouth. "I could've eaten this," he says lightly, fingering one of the macaroni pieces, and Zayn huffs out a laugh and pecks him on the lips, quick, before crawling back and sliding off the sofa so he can stand. He's heading back toward the kitchen, and he turns midway to face Niall, says with a hint of a smile, "I realized we've been dating for four months today, did you know?"

Niall's mouth picks up in the corner. "Is that why you made me the necklace?"

"Yeah, four months is the pastaversary, obviously," Zayn says, grinning wider, and Niall laughs.

"Well, what do I give you? Never really good with last minute presents."

Zayn shrugs, and walks into the kitchen. 

"Don't need anything," he calls over his shoulder, and he’s got a softer smile this time around. "Got you."

\---

The night before Liam has to leave for his study abroad program, Liam says, "I just wanna stay in with you guys. Just chill. We can do that, right?" so they all pile in a car to Harry and Louis' place, and spend most of the day sitting on the front steps, doing nothing. Louis goes upstairs to get his skateboard at one point, and Harry goes upstairs to get the first aid kit Liam bought them, and he and Liam sit on the bottom step and watch Louis kick-push up and down the block.

Zayn tugs on Niall's hand, says he wants to go to the store on the corner for some ice cream. They're walking down the block when Niall slides his hand in Zayn's and stretches to the side so their arms are pulled taut between them. Zayn laughs, leans away, too, and they hear Louis shout, "Coming through!' from right behind them over the sound of his skateboard gliding over concrete. They don't break their grip on each other quick enough, and Niall registers Louis' _wagh - !_ as he gets caught between their hands and thrown onto the sidewalk. 

"Oow," he's half-moaning, half-laughing with his back on the concrete, "did you just fucking clothesline me with your _love_?"

"You tried to skateboard through two people holding hands!" Zayn says, and thumps Louis lightly in the shin with his boot.

"Well, excuse me for thinking you'd be smart enough to _let go_."

Zayn thumps him again, and, "You're kicking me while I"m down." Louis grabs him 'round the ankle. "You're literally kicking me while I'm down. Shit - where's my board?"

"It kept going," Zayn says helpfully, and Louis makes a face.

Niall laughs, and jogs in the direction of Louis' skateboard.

(Behind him, Louis tell Zayn, "I hope you get a flesh eating disease only on your hands.")

By the time Niall returns, Liam's sitting on the ground with Louis and Harry's standing next to Zayn, holding open the first aid kit.

"You alright?" Niall says, and Louis fingers the black and yellow bandage on his elbow.

"I don't have very long left to live," Louis says sadly, and looks at Liam. "Do I, Doctor?"

"Two, maybe three days," Liam says, pressing the edges down on the - Niall can see it better now - the Batman insignia. Harry sighs and shakes his head.

"These things happen so suddenly," he says, somber, "but at least you’ll get to be with your best friends and see Liam one last time before you shuffle off this mortal coil."

"I'm so glad we haven't resorted to dramatics," Zayn deadpans, grabbing the skateboard from Niall, and Louis narrows his eyes.

"I'm going to haunt you when I die," he says.

Zayn clutches the skateboard to his chest with a forearm, crosses his fingers on both hands. "One can only hope," he tells Louis, before reaching down to help him up.

Louis opens his mouth to retort when Liam perks up, still on the ground. "Ice cream?" he says, and a few moments later, they see an ice cream truck turn the corner and make its way down the street.

"I bet if I blew a dog whistle, you'd hear it," Louis tells Liam as he helps him up, too, and Liam just laughs.

Louis nods at Niall, blinks wide, innocent eyes as he cradles his arm. "Help me, I'm injured and hungry."

Niall pulls his wallet from his pocket, holds a hand out so the truck knows to stop. "Yeah, fine, alright, we were gonna get ice cream anyway."

"And one for my doctor! He saved my life." Louis nudges Liam, and then nods to Harry. "Also, his nurse."

He gives Zayn an unimpressed look, says, "And you. I guess."

Zayn crooks an arm around Louis' neck and kisses his temple. He hands off the skateboard with a smile, says, "I'll buy you two of those chocolate ones that you like."

"...Maybe I can be a friendly ghost," Louis relents.

\---

The next morning, they squish Liam in a group hug at the airport, and Liam, with his head tucked under Zayn's chin and his fingers wrapped around Niall and Harry's wrists and a foot tucked between Louis', mumbles, "Please, can none of us ever learn how to touch each other appropriately, it's my favorite thing."

"Liam, this can't _happen_ ," Louis wails, his face buried in Liam's shoulder, and Harry sighs. 

"Louis is probably going to burn a building down with you gone," Harry says. "I can't ever get him to not do things."

"I can wire bail money if I have to," Liam promises, and Niall laughs, and shuffles closer - he doesn't even know how it's possible, but he _does_ \- and says, "Jesus, but you're like the head, Liam, you can't go."

"I'm going to make a shrine in your room out of Avengers paraphernalia," Zayn says, and Liam's grinning so wide his eyes have all but disappeared.

"I love you all very much," he says, and Zayn kisses the crown of his head. 

"Um - if you five are done being creepily dependent on touching one another," one of Liam's sister says, "Liam still has to check his bags."

Niall glances over four pairs of shoulders, sees Liam's family watching them with curious tilts of their heads. 

"Shut up, Ruth," Liam says, "it's not creepy."

Ruth snorts.

"You know you've been hugging for like, ten minutes right?"

\---

Their second year starts, and it’s weird, without Liam there, but Niall, Zayn and Harry manage - it’s easier now that Louis’ closer and doesn’t have to travel every weekend to see them all. The first term passes by in a blur, and before they know it, the holiday break sneaks up on them.

Liam won’t be back home until the twenty-first, so after Niall’s last exam, it’s just him and Zayn who pack up Liam’s car with suitcases and presents and the CD Harry made them just for the trip, set on repeat. They leave Harry and Louis with both boys promising to visit over the break once Liam's there, too, and Zayn drives off with the heat turned on high and Niall’s feet on the dash.

He drives under the speed limit the entire time, because it’s snowing, and it’s Liam’s car, and he’s afraid of wrecking it in both instances.

It takes them an extra hour before they finally pull to a stop in front of Zayn’s parents' house, but there are worse things, Niall thinks, than going home with people you love.

Zayn parks right in front, unbuckles his seatbelt and stares at the wheel for a moment before turning in his seat to face Niall.

“Don’t - don’t be nervous.”

Niall smiles. “I'm not.”

“I - my mom’s part Irish, so she already likes you, and my dad tries to look intimidating but really he’s a big softie. He likes firm handshakes and eye contact though,” Zayn’s looking away and he says distantly, like he’s talking to himself, “but you have a good handshake, so that’s fine.”

“Zayn, you don’t - ”

“My sisters are _awful_. I mean they’re not, I love them, but they like riling me up over _everything_. And my older sister’s out a lot, and our neighbors have girls around the same age as my youngest, so I’m pretty sure they’re not going to like, barge in on us every single moment. Just don’t take anything they say seriously.”

“ _Zayn_ -”

“Please don’t ask to look at my baby pictures,” Zayn finishes in a rush, and they stare at each other for a moment before Zayn laughs, and looks down. He covers his face with his hand, smiling, says, “Sorry, I. Shit.”

He drops his hand. “I just realized you’re spending like, two weeks at my house before you go home too and my family is not going to stop making fun of me the entire time.”

“They know I’m your boyfriend?”

“Yeah, of course,” Zayn looks past Niall’s window, towards his house, and winces. “And that, you know.”

“What?”

“ThatIloveyou,” Zayn blurts out, and then there’s a pair of exaggerated screams, and someone’s pounding on the passenger side. Niall starts, and when he looks there’s two little girls pressing their noses to the window and making faces at him. He makes a face back - eyes crossed and tongue sticking out - and they laugh.

“Zaaaaaayn,” there’s another girl - Zayn’s older sister, Niall guesses - tapping on the window on Zayn’s side, and Zayn gripping the top of the steering wheel with his forehead resting on his fingers. “Zaaayn, is that him? He’s cute.”

“Doniya,” Zayn’s voice is muffled, but Niall’s sure she can hear him. “If you say anything, I will smother you with a pillow in your sleep.”

“Missed you, little brother,” she says at that, grinning, and Zayn picks up his head with an exasperated look of fondness and a smile of his own.

“Yeah, missed you, too.”

\---

“Your family loves me.”

“I know.”

“No, I mean they _love me_ , Zayn.”

It’s a little after three in the morning, a few days before Christmas, and Niall’s sitting on the closed lid of the toilet seat in the bathroom while Zayn brushes his teeth.

He narrows his eyes at Niall, pulls out the toothbrush to say, “ _I know_. I knew they would.” He goes back to brushing and tilts his head. “Ink ey ight ikoo ore.”

“What?”

Zayn spits into the sink, says, “Think they might like you more. Than me.”

“Oh, obviously,” Niall taps his fingers against his knees and smiles. “I mean, that was the plan all along, really. Secretly taking over your life and then phasing you out by 2015.”

Zayn rolls his eyes and dries his hands on his pajama pants. He looks down at Niall, cups his chin with a crooked index finger and a thumb pressing into his cheek. “I was drying dishes with my mom after dinner and she said to invite you over whenever.”

“Might take her up on that offer,” Niall says, and Zayn grins and heads back to his bedroom. 

“Never really introduced them to anyone before,” he says quietly once they’re inside, and Niall shuts the door behind him. 

“No?”

Zayn shakes his head. “I mean, I dated people before Liam and I became friends, they just never felt,” he sits down on his bed, shrugs and looks at Niall. “I don’t know. Important enough.”

He grimaces. “Fuck, that sounds bad, doesn’t it? Like, not that they weren’t important, like,” he’s gesturing with his hands, “people have _worth_ or whatever, but I just never looked at someone I was dating and thought, ‘I want my family to love you like I do.’”

Niall laughs, and Zayn laughs too. “Not _exactly_ like I do, you pervert. Just. You know. The general stuff.”

Niall sits down next to him. "Yeah, I know."

He knocks Zayn in the thigh with the back of his hand. "I'm happy they like me. I know I said I wasn't nervous, but. I lied."

Zayn hides a smile in Niall's shoulder before leaning back and reaching for his laptop. "Come, let's see if Liam's on Skype, he's sad he missed you meeting them, said he wants a play-by-play."

"Want me to text Harry and see if he and Louis can get online, too?"

Zayn grins. "Like the answer to that question is ever 'no'."

\---

Three days before the new year, a few after Liam’s been in town and two before Harry and Louis are meant to come down to visit, Niall’s in bed with Zayn, who’s laughing him.

“You sound like a cat,” he says, and Niall huffs with a smile.

“Don’t make fun of me.”

Zayn's got a leg hitched up over Niall’s hip, a knuckle under Niall's shirt, smoothing down the trail on Niall’s stomach. He grins when Niall makes the same, soft _mewling_ sound as before. “Weak spot!” He sounds delighted. “You’re cute.”

Niall ducks down to nip at Zayn’s jaw, murmurs, “I happen to know that you sigh when I do that thing to the tattoo on your chest.”

“I like the marks it leaves,” Zayn says, and Niall sits back to smile.

“Gosh, will you one day paint the way I make you feel, Zayn,” he says, eyes wide, and Zayn pinches his side and laughs.

“Don’t be an asshole,” Zayn says, and Niall scoots back on his knees, tugs at the zipper of Zayn’s jeans.

“Speaking of assholes…” he says, and Zayn barks out another laugh.

”So fucking _crass_ -”

Zayn tugs Niall down again, rolls them over and holds himself on his elbows as Niall shifts his hips up. “D’you wanna?”

”Do you have anything?”

Niall pauses, and then says, “Shit fuck, please tell me you remembered, because I didn’t.”

“Bad,” Zayn kisses him, then backs up onto his knees. “And yeah, I did.” He leans over his bed, digs around underneath it to grab the messenger bag he brought over from school. He unzips a compartment on the inside, pulls out another bag and Niall laughs. “You serious?”

“I have three sisters,” Zayn reminds him, and then sags a little with the bag in his hands. “I don’t think I can have sex in a house that my family is also in, actually.”

Niall is (mostly) not proud of the whine he lets out.

“We could... go somewhere else?” Zayn asks, and Niall nods.

“Yes. Where? Anywhere,” he says. “I’ll rent a hotel room. I’ll rent several. Literally anyplace.”

”How about,” Zayn smiles, and it’s a little dirty, maybe, which is fine, because Niall’s always up for whatever Zayn’s smirking entails. “…How ‘bout a car?”

“Car sex? Wait, you have a car?”

“Here, yeah. Beat up old clunker, but it runs.” Zayn crawls forward, bag in one hand, chest pushing Niall down onto the bed. Niall cups his face, kisses him. “There’s a baseball diamond a few minutes away, lots of trees and the houses are farther apart. We can park there.”

“And have car sex,” Niall repeats, just to be sure.

“Yeah.”

“Like, sex. Fucking. In your car.”

Zayn smiles. “Yes.”

“Have I told you I love you yet today?” Niall says wonderingly.

“You have.”

“Because I do. A lot. Massively -“

Zayn cuts him off with another kiss, and then pats his hip and gets up off the bed. “C’mon then,” he says, and zips his jeans back up. Niall smooths out his shirt, grabs his coat off of Zayn’s floor, and Zayn’s slipping on his own coat and tugging a beanie over his head before walking over to the small bookshelf along his wall.

”Also,” he grabs what looks like a can of Coke, but then twists the bottom off and takes out a one hitter and a baggie that’s got a couple nuggets of weed in it. “Bought a dub earlier from an old friend, so.”

“Sex while high,” Niall scoots off the bed, follows Zayn out of his room as Zayn tucks the baggie as deep as it’ll go in his inside pocket. “You’re my favorite person in the whole world.”

They’re still laughing when they make it down the stairs. Zayn’s parents are watching television and look over the sofa as Zayn heads to front door, Niall’s hands on his hips behind him.

“Where’re you boys going?”

Zayn says, “Out,” and Niall drops his hands and says, “Food.”

Zayn’s mother raises an eyebrow.

“Out… for food?” Zayn tries, and he glances at Niall, who nods.

No one says anything, and then his father just turns around and changes the channel and his mother says, dryly, “Text, will you? When you’re on your way back.”

“As soon as we’re done choking everything down, Mrs. Malik,” Niall says innocently, and Zayn nearly doubles over with a snort. They hurry out of the house and Zayn grabs Niall’s hand as they make their way to the garage, whispers hoarsely, “In front of my _parents_ , Niall?” 

Niall shrugs, shameless.

“What, it’s not exactly a lie.”

\---

"In retrospect," Zayn shivers, and fiddles with the heat controls. "Trying to have sex in a car in the middle of winter is probably a bad idea, anyway."

Niall makes a face, smokes an imaginary cigarette and puffs out his breath - visible, in this cold - like it's smoke. "I respectfully disagree," he says with a squint. "When people have hypothermia, they get naked and cuddle."

"I’m not sure that qualifies as cuddling. And we're not suffering from hypothermia."

"Roleplay," Niall scoffs, tucks his chin into his scarf. "We could be, and then us being naked would make sense."

"What if we die?" Zayn asks, and Niall shrugs, tugs on Zayn's arm until he smiles and climbs across the center console to straddle Niall's lap in the passenger seat. Zayn's still got on his coat with the collar turned up and Niall kisses him, shoves his hands in Zayn's pockets to warm them up.

"There are worse ways to go than potentially hypothermia-inducing sex in a car, Zayn," he says, and Zayn laughs, and pulls Niall's hands from his pockets to hold them between his own. 

"Why aren't you wearing gloves?"

"Forgot," Niall says, and Zayn smiles against his fingertips, presses a kiss there. He tugs off his and slides them over Niall’s hands instead, smiles like he thinks Niall forgot them on purpose (Niall _might_ have, but it’s not like Zayn can prove anything).

“Let’s go play in the snow at least,” Zayn suggests then, and Niall gives the scene outside the window a once-over. They’ve stopped a few minutes away from Zayn’s, on an almost-empty street that overlooks a baseball diamond and it’s, admittedly, very pretty - but it's _freezing_ , too.

“Snow is cold,” Niall says, “the car is warm. Or it’s getting there. Can’t we just stay in here?”

“But it’s snowing,” Zayn insists, and he’s already trying to get the passenger side open. Zayn smiles at him once he’s outside and on the ground and Niall leans back against the headrest.

“Cooold,” he says, and Zayn leans forward, places a hand high on his thigh.

“I’ll warm you up, later. Maybe I can make an exception to the whole not-having-sex-in-my-house thing.”

“Not unless you promise.”

Zayn kisses him quick, murmurs _promise_ with a grin, and he’s heading off in the direction of the field without looking back. Niall gets out of the car, slams the door shut and takes a running start at Zayn’s back, pushes off his shoulders when he gets there. Zayn laughs, loses his balance just a bit because of the snow, and tucks his hands under Niall’s knees once he's steady.

Niall slides his arms around Zayn’s shoulders, and when they get to center field, Zayn asks, “Here?”

“Yeah, alright -” Zayn dumps him on the ground without warning, laughs when Niall curses through his own laughter as he flops onto his back like a rag doll.

Zayn’s darting away from him as quick as the snow beneath his feet will allow, and it only takes Niall three tries before he gets a hold of Zayn again, knocks him into the snow, too. Zayn goes _oof_ and laughs again with with his head thrown back in the snow and eyes squeezed shut and Niall sits astride his lower half, pins his wrists to his sides in the snow.

“Fuck, that’s cold,” Zayn says with a gasping breath, and Niall lets go of his wrists and kisses him. Zayn smiles into it, circles his arms around Niall to tug him down. He’s shaking already, hard enough that his mouth is trembling against Niall’s, and Niall’s about to relent and let him go when Zayn scoops a handful of snow with his hand and smashes it into the back of his neck.

Niall yelps, scrambles up and shakes himself out like a wet dog. Zayn hasn’t moved from his place in the snow, and he’s laughing. Niall sniffs, wipes the last of the snow off his collar, and he stares down at Zayn with what he hopes is a look that promises swift retribution. Zayn - still shaking like a leaf - sticks out his tongue, so it’s probably not as menacing as Niall wants it to be.

Zayn inhales a shaky breath through chattering teeth, says, “Help me up.”

“I could bury you here,” Niall tells him, and looks around as he starts to tremble, too. “No one would find you ‘til Spring.”

“Help me _up_ , weirdo,” Zayn says with a laugh, and Niall grabs his hands, tugs him into a standing position. Zayn stumbles into Niall deliberately, gathers him up close, apologetic even as he grins. He cups Niall’s jaw, the heels of his palms tilting Niall’s face up and presses his thumbs to Niall’s cheeks. He stares like he’s studying him and Niall says with a shiver, “W - what?”

Zayn shakes his head, smiles softly.

“I like how red your cheeks get,” he says, and turns towards the car again, hand dropping down to slip into Niall’s. Zayn slips his hand into his coat to check the liner pocket. “Shit, good, thought I’d lose the weed in the snow.”

Niall snorts, leans in close. “Can we just go back to your room and smoke? It’s nice there. Very not-freezing.”

“Mhm.”

“And there’s a bed.”

“You know what,” Zayn says, feigning surprise, “there _is_ , I completely forgot.”

“And you promised me things,” Niall tugs on his hand. “Warming up things.”

“We could run in place for a bit,” Zayn muses, and cranes his neck to catch Niall in another kiss before he has a chance to respond. He has a hand on Niall's chest, the other still hanging by their sides, linked with Niall’s. Zayn nudges Niall’s cheek with his nose, and Niall feels a boot tap idly at the heel of his shoe. Niall says, “Zayn, if you drop me into this snow again, I swear I’ll hide you in a snowman.”

Zayn taps his heel once more with a laugh, and shakes his head. “Wasn’t gonna.”

Niall says, “Sure,” and, just because, bites Zayn’s chin. Zayn jerks away, laughing louder, now, and starts pulling them towards the car again.

“Come on,” he tells Niall. “I’ll make you hot chocolate when we get there.”

Niall curls his free hand around Zayn’s bicep, rests his head on Zayn’s shoulder as they stumble through the snow. “Okay. Except instead of hot chocolate, I want chocolate sauce. And instead of drinking it out of a mug, you should lick it off of me.”

“I think we have those mini-marshmallows we can put in them?” Zayn says by way of response, and Niall mulls this over before shrugging.

“I guess that’s an acceptable second.”

\---

They spent the rest of the night curled into each other in Zayn's bed, the blanket over their heads like a barrier, and Zayn presses his mouth to the crook of Niall's elbow, the jut of his hipbone, the space below his ear that always makes him shiver, murmurs _iloveyou_ like he thinks the words will sink under Niall's skin if he says them close enough. Niall fits a hand over Zayn's hips like muscle memory and Zayn shuffles in; he runs a thumb down the slope of Niall's nose, asks, "You love me?" and Niall laughs quietly.

"You serious?"

"No, not really," Zayn hums something soft, "it's just -" 

His eyebrows knit together, and Niall tilts his chin up, feels sleepy, punch-drunk with contentment.

"It feels right, doesn't it? Like, I get to be your best friend and your boyfriend. Best of both worlds."

Niall smiles, and drops a lingering kiss to Zayn's mouth. 

"I love you too, Hannah Montana," he says softly.

\---

When the five of them get together again, _finally_ , Harry - whose got an elf hat on and a plate of cookies in his hands for Zayn’s little sisters - shouts, “It’s a Christmas miracle!”

Liam says, “Harry, it’s the thirtieth,” and Harry spreads his arms out and corrects, “It’s a pre-New Year’s Eve miracle!”

Zayn’s parents go on a date that night, and Doniya takes the younger ones to a movie (all of them leave with Harry’s cookies in hand, and he high fives them on the way out, even Zayn’s parents). The boys are left alone, and they head upstairs to Zayn’s room with the glass bubbler Louis’ managed to smuggle in his coat, away from the prying eyes of disapproving parents.

Liam asks for the tenth time that night, "Are you _sure_ no one is going to notice?"

Zayn laughs as he twists a grinder in his hands, dumps the broken up nuggets of weed on a baggie for Louis to pick up. "We're in _my_ room and you're worried about the smell?"

"Well, I don't know!" Liam flaps his hands. "The whole place could stink up, and your sisters could come home, and your parents will frown at us."

"Ventilation," Niall says, finally. "Those little scent spray thingies. We're good, Liam."

"Harry, what are you _playing_ ," Louis says, glancing at Harry's laptop as he packs the first bowl of the night. "This sounds like a cat in heat got stuck in a trombone."

Niall cackles from his place on the carpeting, near Zayn’s bed. "Harry," he says, and smiles at Zayn until he drops the grinder down next to the baggie and starts to crawl over towards Niall. "Haven't you made a smoking playlist?"

Louis looks over Harry's shoulder at that, eyes flickering over the screen, and then points to something in the bottom corner while holding onto the bubbler carefully with the other so it doesn’t tip over and let the water out. "Is that it?"

"What's it called?" Zayn asks, and leans down over Niall to snuffle into his neck. 

"'Mount Everest?'" Liam reads, and looks at Harry in confusion. 

Louis picks up the lighter next to him and flicks it on and off, says, "It's the highest point on earth measured from sea level." He nods at Harry with an upturn to his lips. "Clever, Harold."

Harry grins.

Louis holds out the bubbler to Zayn, says, “Your weed, bro,” but Zayn shakes his head.

“You packed it, go ahead.”

Louis lifts it in thanks; he thumbs over the carb and lights the bowl, inhales big and then lifts his thumb and sucks in the hit. He coughs with his lips pressed shut, and starts to hand it over to Zayn who waves a hand towards Harry instead, still kneeling over Niall.

Louis deliberately exhales in Liam's direction and Harry’s just about to light the bowl again when Niall says, “Wait, Harry. Play Bieber. You got his albums, right?”

“You made me buy the deluxe versions,” Harry says, and moves the hand holding the lighter down over the trackpad on his laptop to search his iTunes. Niall shrugs against the carpeting. ”Love Justin, he’s my favorite.”

“Justin?” Zayn gives him a look, shifts a leg over so he can sit astride Niall’s lower half. He grips both Niall’s wrists and tugs his arms up until he’s pinning them into the carpet above Niall’s head. Zayn leans down, asks curiously, “Would you make pasta with _Justin_?”

Niall laughs, and Zayn smiles, and presses his wrists harder into the carpet.

“Why? You jealous?”

“Nope,” Zayn says. Niall cranes his neck up, purses his lips briefly, but he can’t move that much, not with the way Zayn’s holding him down.

Zayn’s smirking now, and he jerks his head towards one of the other boys, to come over. When Niall glances to the side, Harry is shuffling forward on his knees, bubbler in hand. He holds a thumb over the carb when he gets to Niall and Zayn, lights it, lets the smoke build in the chamber as he breathes in. It’s a bigger hit than Louis’, and when he inhales sharply, he passes it off as quickly as he can to Liam.

Harry scoots even closer, fits his mouth over Zayn’s to exhale. Zayn's chest expands at the same time, slow, and Harry grins at the end, grabs a hold of the nape of Zayn’s neck for a moment to kiss him like he’s saying _thanks_ before letting go. Zayn's got his lips pursed together - he’s trying not to let the smoke out or laugh - and ducks down. He hovers just over Niall, opens his mouth just slightly and lets the smoke billow out on its own. It curls in the air between them, tiny little clouds of grey-white haze, and Niall closes his eyes, forgets to inhale as his breath hitches. 

He can feel Zayn smile, still a fraction of a distance away, still with his hands clamped over Niall's wrists, and Niall doesn't even try to catch the smoke, just plants his feet on the ground and pushes up with his hips.

"If I was your boyfriend, I'd never let you go," Zayn says, and tightens his hold on Niall's wrist.

"You already _are_ my boyfriend," Niall whines. "Let me go."

"Release the krakken!" Louis says over the sound of Liam coughing, and Liam asks with a scratchy voice, "Is that - is that a dick joke?"

"Bit of an intimidating dick joke," Harry says.

Zayn releases Niall, gets as far as whispering _swag, swag, swag on y -_ before Niall's darting his hands up and holding Zayn in place for a kiss. Zayn laughs, and then Niall slides an arm around his middle to jerk Zayn down onto chest, and Zayn stops laughing.

He breathes out through his nose, settles his limbs and rests an elbow above Niall's head, in the carpet. Niall doesn't realize they're two minutes from putting on a show until his hands drag up Zayn's thighs, clutch his ass along the way, and Zayn gives a low moan that Niall swallows down. 

Louis wolf whistles.

They break apart, Zayn puffing out a laugh against Niall's neck, and Niall looks over just in time to see Harry pulling away from Liam with smoke swirling in the air between them. 

"Five stars," Louis says, giving them Zayn and Niall a little golf clap. "Would watch again."

“Where is the line in this friendship,” Niall asks, and Louis shrugs. 

“Dunno, but I hope we’re not drawing it at voyeurism, because that’s pretty fun if everyone’s involved.”

“I’m not gonna watch them have sex," Harry says. "That seems like a bit much even for me, and I was sleeping naked on Zayn’s bed when he went out to buy snacks like an hour ago.”

Zayn sits up. “Wait, what?”

“You know I think clothing is restrictive.”

“Instead of voyeurism,” Niall’s tapping his palms against Zayn’s thighs, “we should really think about looking into a nudist colony for Harry.”

“No, but I’ll miss everyone,” Harry says, and Louis pauses from repacking the bowl to press a thumbs up to Harry’s cheek.

“Well, then, we can grow to love our bits dangling constantly.”

Niall sings _free, free faaaaallin’_ , and Liam says, “This is the most vaguely incestuous friendship I will ever have in my whole entire life.”

“Incestuous?” Zayn asks, and Louis snorts.

“ _Vaguely_?”

\---

Niall’s heading into the kitchen later when he catches sight of Liam and Zayn speaking in the crack of the door and backs out further into the hallway instead. They don’t see him, too engrossed in whatever it is they’re talking about and - okay, Niall’s not one to purposefully listen in to people’s conversations, but then he hears Liam say _you and Niall -_ and he leans against the doorway, cocks his head.

“It’s going good, yeah,” Liam asks, sitting against the island with his chin on his hand.

“Yeah, it’s been amazing.”

”Awesome,” Liam smiles, looks relieved. “I maybe might have talked to him one night last year, told him not to hurt you. I mean, I said I didn’t want you to hurt him, too, but.”

“What’re we doing?” Harry suddenly whispers next to Niall, and Niall jumps.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he’s got a hand over his heart, closes his eyes. He feels Louis step in close to his other side. “Jesus, you scared me,” Niall whispers, hoarse, and Harry rubs his hands up and down Niall’s shoulders apologetically, leans into his space until he can see Zayn and Liam in the kitchen through the sliver of open door.

Louis raises an eyebrow. “Niall, are you spying?”

“Uh,” Niall smiles. “I ain’t been dropping no eaves, sir, honest?”

Harry laughs, quiet, but presses into Niall’s back anyway and pushes them a touch closer. “M’curious,” he says, and by the time the three of them stop rustling, they catch Liam in the middle of a sentence:

”- so good for you,” he says, and Zayn laughs.

“Yeah, I,” Zayn comes into view for a moment, and he’s biting his lip to hide a smile. “He’s - it’s great.”

Harry smiles against the nape of Niall’s neck, squeezes his waist like he’s saying _look! Zayn’s talking about you!_

“I didn’t think I could be this, this _sure_ about someone. I mean - I don’t know what’s going to happen next month, or next year, and we’re _young_ and he’s,” Zayn looks up at Liam. “Niall’s not the first person I’ve ever loved, but.”

He falls silent, and Liam prompts, “But?”

“But,” Zayn comes into view again, and leans against the counter, by the sink. He crosses his arms and smiles down at his boots with a shake of his head. “Liam, I don’t think I’d mind, if he was the last. You know?”

“Hellooo,” Louis says then, and pushes them through the door. Liam’s smiling at Zayn, though he aims it at the other boys when they come in. Niall hops onto the island, right in front of Zayn, and Zayn pushes off the counter, steps closer until he’s resting his hands against the edge on either side of Niall.

Niall holds onto the front of his shirt with loose fingers, and Zayn lifts a hand, presses the back of it to Niall’s cheek. “You’re blushing. Why are you blushing?”

Niall shrugs, smiling, and Zayn drops his hand, studies Niall with a tilt of his head. Louis says, “He’s blushing because he has good hearing.”

Zayn looks confused for a moment, and then it slides into something soft instead and he licks his lips, smiles a little secretly.

He ducks his head, glances up at Niall. “How much of that did you hear, exactly?”

Niall mouth twists to hide his smile and Zayn huffs out a laugh and says, "Right."

The front door opens, and the sounds of Zayn’s sisters suddenly fill the house. The youngest runs at Harry, shedding her outwear along the way, who picks her up and places her on his toes so they can ballroom dance around the kitchen while Liam and Louis mime playing instruments. Louis reaches out suddenly, grabs at Liam and dips him, only he loses his grip and Liam falls to the floor. They're laughing, and Louis sits on his stomach as Harry floats past Zayn and Niall with Zayn's sister, humming some imaginary song, when Niall leans forward to whisper,

“Wouldn’t mind being last, either.”

(There are moments, and then there are Moments, and Niall mentally files this away under the latter.)

### and back again

Louis hops from foot to foot and says, "I'd like to state for the record that this was a terrible idea."

Liam snorts. "You're just mad because you lost."

Louis angrily shivers in Liam's general direction. It's four am on the first of January, and he's standing (hopping) in the cold in nothing but a pair of briefs because Louis, apparently, is even worse than Niall at bluffing. The rest of the boys are bundled up, and Louis gives Niall’s scarf a wistful look.

"Bet you regret the whole never wearing socks thing now," Zayn says around an almost-finished cigarette, and Louis fake-laughs and gives him a middle finger.

"Where do you even find cheetah print underpants," Niall says, and Louis gives him a teeth-chattering smile.

"Enough, alright, let's get this over with."

"Don't worry, Louis," Harry says, "I've got a blanket right here."

Louis closes his eyes with a sigh, spreads his arms out wide. His body gives a massive shiver, and he cracks open an eye:

"If I don't make it, tell my sisters I love them. And Zayn can have my beanies."

Zayn inhales down to the filter and then flicks the cigarette stub away, gives Louis a thumbs up, and Louis nods, hops from foot to foot once more, and then lets himself fall back into the snow.

He cries out when he lands in the snow, moans, "Oh, sweet Jesus, I have never been this cold in my _life_ ," and keeps whimpering as he spreads his arms and legs out until he's got a decently molded angel.

"Okay," his teeth are chattering, "okay, d - done. Help me up."

The other four step into the snow, get their footprints all around the angel, and once Louis’ standing, he shuffles directly into the blanket Harry's holding out for him. (He says, “Is it a good angel?” and Harry tells him, “the best, Lou, honest.”) They head into the house quick, with Louis moaning and groaning the whole way.

“I can’t feel my _legs_ ,” Louis says when they reach the kitchen, “ _I think I might die_.”

“You’re not going to die, Lou,” Zayn says, and slips off his jacket to put it around Louis, too. “Here.”

Louis touches Zayn’s face with cold fingertips, looks out past his shoulder. “Zayn? Is - is that you?”

“Jesus, just go to my room.” Zayn’s laughing and shoving a bundled up Louis towards the stairs. “Niall and I’ll make hot chocolate.”

“Pay attention to meee,” Louis drags the last word with his head on Liam’s shoulder and Harry’s arms around his middle like a bear hug as they shuffle out of the room and presumably up the stairs to Zayn’s. 

Once they’re gone, Zayn turns the kitchen light on, and then the stovetop. He heads to the fridge to grab the carton of milk, fills a saucepan with it. Niall takes off his coat, his scarf, and leans against the counter and watches Zayn dig through a cabinet for the chocolate powder packets. He dumps them one by one into the saucepan and stirs until it’s all mixed in and is lowering the heat when there’s a loud thump overhead that sounds like it’s coming from Zayn’s room, then muffled giggling.

Niall looks up, and doesn’t notice Zayn’s stepping closer until he’s right in front of Niall, hand sliding around to scratch idly at the small of his back. The timed lights strung up along the outside of the window above the sink flash across Zayn’s face in different colors - red, then blue, then green - and Zayn says, “I’m really happy you decided to come.”

“Yeah, me too.” He jerks his chin, in question: “Maybe you can spend next season with my family?”

Zayn looks down and lets out a short laugh. “Yeah, alright.”

He keeps shuffling in then, so he’s backing Niall against the counter. He tugs Niall’s sweater down with his fingers so he can press a kiss to the skin there; his nose is cold against Niall’s neck, and Niall laughs and squirms as much as he can without actually pulling away.

Zayn’s trailing his mouth up, up, up and lifts a hand to the underside of Niall’s jaw, fingers digging into the nape of his neck, to pull him in for a kiss. Niall lets out the breath he’s been holding, opens his mouth up with hands holding tight to Zayn’s waist.

Zayn tastes like fizzy champagne and cigarettes and good decisions and he rests his forehead against Niall’s temple, says, "I like you here."

Niall smiles, taps his fingers along Zayn’s side. "Yeah, this is a great kitchen."

Zayn laughs, kicks the toe of Niall’s shoe with his own. "No," he says, looking right at Niall now. "Here. In my life."

Niall reaches for Zayn’s wrists, links their fingers together and stretches their arms out wide to either side until their chests bump together. He shrugs with a soft smile, and kisses Zayn quick before he drops their arms and grabs Zayn round the middle instead.

The lights keep flickering _redbluegreen_ over Zayn’s features, and Niall tells him, “Yeah, well. Not really planning on leaving anytime soon.”

Zayn grins wide, and happy, and a little dorky, too, with the bridge of his nose wrinkling and his eyes squinting closed. He murmurs _good to know_ and - and, yeah, Niall might be a little bit in love with all of his friends, but only one of them managed to turn it into something this all-encompassing.

The hot chocolate bubbles over on the stove, and Zayn curses and jerks out of Niall's arms to shut off the heat. He's setting the mugs up and pouring the milk into them when Niall gets two texts in a row: 

**To: Niall**  
**From: Liam**  
DONT FORGETTT MARHSMALLWOOOOWSSSSSSSS :DDD 

**To: Niall**  
**From: Harry**  
Lou says if you don't stop being 'disgustingly in love' and bring his hot chocolate up soon he is writing both of you out of his will... haha :) 

Zayn shuts off the light, takes three mugs of hot chocolate, while Niall takes two; he picks up the bag of mini marshmallows lying on the counter with his teeth along the way, and they head up the stairs slowly, in near darkness. There's another thump, more giggling, and Zayn's absentmindedly singing _I'll be your platinum, I'll be your silver, I'll be your gold_ under his breath and -

They had a good year. They had a _great_ year.

Niall thinks this one will be even better.


End file.
